


like a river in reverse (my heartbreak flows)

by adamantine



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (probably will have), Accidental Voyeurism, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, References to Depression, Season 8 (Voltron) Fix-It, Space Politics, Time Travel Fix-It, emotional cheating
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-01-04 17:00:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 37,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18347900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adamantine/pseuds/adamantine
Summary: While Keith is in a coma, Shiro analyzes his feelings.With Shiro married, Keith tries to move on.And as Allura sacrifices herself to save reality, she wonders if there might be another way.OR: The one where I decide to undo all of S8 because I love these characters more than the show does.





	1. stasis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m approaching this fic with a specific mindset: that season 8 is total bullshit, clearly written the way it was for out-of-universe reasons. Executive meddling, bad writing, censorship, arrogance, ignorance, whatever. With that in mind, explaining _how_ and _why_ season 8 happened isn’t my goal. I want to explore that playground with the emotional fallout, but I’m going to keep the rationalization for it vague.

Shiro hates hospitals. He appreciates what they do. He thinks the people that work in them are some of the best people in the universe. It doesn’t stop him from hating them.

The hospital he hates most is the Garrison’s.

After the paladins crash, Shiro makes himself useful. He attends meetings, joins committees, helps with the relief efforts, makes presentations, trains crew for the IGF-Atlas, gives speeches, offers his services to the Coalition—if there’s something that needs to be done, Shiro is willing to be the man that takes care of it. He doesn’t give himself a moment to think about anything other than his duties to the Garrison, to the Coalition, to the universe, because if his mind isn’t occupied it will inevitably drift to the Garrison’s hospital and the people recovering there.

One by one the Paladins wake up and are cleared for release. Shiro makes the time to meet with them once they’re out. None of the Paladins comment on his absence. Shiro’s hectic schedule is an accepted, understandable excuse.

Pidge, Hunk, Lance, and Allura all wake up and leave the Garrison’s hospital. Pidge and Hunk wake up within hours of each other, the day after the attack. They aren’t cleared for release for another week but it’s the Garrison’s worries over magical unknown injuries that keep them there so long. Lance and Allura are still in a coma when Hunk and Pidge are released. Allura’s health runs into complications as the Garrison doesn’t quite know what to make of her biology. She wakes up over a week after the attack, Lance waking up the day before her, but once she’s awake the rest of her recovery speeds by. She’s out of the hospital before Lance.

Keith doesn’t wake up.

One week, two weeks, three weeks—almost four weeks and Keith is still in a deep coma. Stupidly, foolishly, no one bothered to tell the Garrison that Keith isn’t fully human after the Paladin’s return to Earth. They don’t expect Keith’s biology to react as it does to their treatments. Their ignorance makes Keith’s precarious condition worse.

Shiro can’t do anything for Keith. He can’t even donate blood, despite being a so-called universal donor. Keith’s strange blood type is the first thing that almost kills him, as Shiro finds out from the files he’s abused every power to get. Coran’s intervention saves Keith. Altean blood is, surprise, actually universal. It has something to do with their shapeshifting. The science involved is too complex for Shiro to understand and frankly, doesn’t matter. What matters is that Coran saves Keith’s life.

Week two of Keith’s hospitalization brings Krolia and the rest of the Blades to Earth. Shiro is relieved knowing there will be someone at Keith’s side when he wakes up. Krolia gives advice on Keith’s healthcare, but Keith is unique—human and Galra—and no one truly knows how he’ll react to treatments meant for either race.

The longer Keith is in the hospital the more Shiro throws himself into his work. He needs a reason to not be there, a reason to not think of Keith lying in a hospital bed in a coma he can’t wake up from.

Krolia approaches him once, not asking but clearly wondering why Shiro hasn’t visited. He offers no excuse, no reason for his glaring lack of interest in Keith’s recovery. Krolia is disappointed, he can tell by the way she looks at him, her expressions are too much like Keith’s. Whatever warm feelings she had for him shrivel up and die. She doesn’t contact him again.

There’s a mental block he can’t shake off keeping him from opening the hospital’s doors. Shiro can’t stand even being  _near_  that part of the Garrison. The longer Keith is in a coma the more time he has to dwell on the things he pushed away on the journey back to Earth.

He tried to kill Keith.

Like all of the clone’s memories the details are hazy and difficult to parse through, but what he does remember is enough to give him nightmares.

Shiro wakes up after searing Keith’s face. In the dream, he blinds Keith before cutting through his skull.

He debates if going back to sleep is worth it.

Shiro’s feet guide him without any input. He walks barefoot through the Garrison’s hallways. It’s late, maybe two or three in the morning, and the lights are off or dimmed. He keeps walking until his mind catches up with his body, stopping abruptly when he realizes he’s near the Garrison’s hospital.

He wants to see Keith. He doesn’t want to see Keith. He’s afraid. His feelings are a jumbled mess.

It’s funny. He felt so sure of his feelings when he was dead and watching Keith knowing he would never have the chance to see him again. It’s funny. The clone’s feelings toward Keith were easy, simple, basic. He lacked Shiro’s filters. Put it together and Shiro should be freer in his feelings for Keith than ever. Yet somehow, thinking about Keith makes his mind shut down in a panic worse than when he’s facing a hospital door.

They’re in the middle of a war. Keith is in a coma. When he wakes up the last thing he needs to deal with is Shiro’s messy, complicated  _feelings_. There’s no time for that.

Shiro heads to his room. He’s on edge, tired and alert at the same time; it’s a familiar state to him.

The Garrison’s lights flicker before turning off, forcing Shiro to use the glow of his arm to see. He turns down a hall that he thinks is a shortcut to his room, but the Garrison has changed over the years and he ends up hopelessly lost.

His phone is in his room. He tries a door but it doesn’t budge.

Fine, Shiro just needs to retrace his steps. Go back to where he started and take a different route.

He retraces his steps and meets a dead end.

He tries again—another dead end.

Since when did the Garrison have so many dead ends? He tries again and again and finds nothing but dead ends, which is impossible. He checks the numbers on the doors, the posters on the walls to make sure he’s not running in circles but each hallway is different and each one leads to a dead end. The Garrison is a maze he can’t escape.

_Paladins! Lance? Coran?_

A voice drifts from the end of the hallway. It echoes strangely.

_Can anyone hear me?_

Light seeps from a door unlike any he’s ever seen at the Garrison.

It’s a dream.  _Shiro is in a dream._  The realization washes over him. He relaxes. It’s a better dream than usual, even if it’s frustrating.

“Hello?” Shiro’s voice doesn’t echo.

_Shiro? Shiro! You can—Shiro there isn’t much time._

“Who’s there? What’s going on?”

_Shiro, listen carefully. Reality is closing. I don’t have much time. I keep trying, but—_

The voice sounds like it’s been filtered but the tone, the accent—he knows it.

“Allura?”

_Shiro, listen! You need to—_

The door. Allura must be trapped behind it. It takes the strength of his prosthetic hand to open it and when does, he’s blasted with pink light. It’s Allura, but it’s not her at the same time. The word soul terrifies him so settles for something safer: it’s her quintessence.

He walks into it, or maybe it wraps around him. He’s not sure. He’s losing all sense of reality. The dream is breaking down around him. Time is meaningless.

_Shiro, I understand now. We can change things. I wish I could tell you how but I can’t hold on much longer. Do you understand?_

Shiro nods. Or thinks about nodding. It’s the same thing.

_Go, find the others. They need you._

The light vanishes.

 

⼮ 

Keith shoves his travel bag into his hoverbike’s storage compartment. He travels light, but the compartment is small given the size of his bike, and it takes some effort to make it fit. Kosmo rolls over on the hangar floor, showing his belly and whining impatiently like the spoiled puppy he is deep down. Sometimes he wishes he could pull a Kosmo and throw a fit when he’s being ignored, but Keith doesn’t have the privilege of being a cute, cosmic entity that can teleport during a tantrum.

“Yeah, yeah.” Keith kneels to pet him. “See you soon.”

Kosmo disappears in a flash of light, no doubt teleporting to someone that will feed him after a week of eating nothing but rations and food goo. Krolia, maybe—she’s a good candidate for feeding him with fresh food. But then so are Ruzer, Sildreen, Krazor, Zethrid, Ezor, or Milra. Any Blade, really, is willing to feed Kosmo. He might even trick multiple Blades into feeding him if he’s feeling especially peckish.

No wonder Kosmo is the size of a horse.

Keith’s hoverbike purrs when he powers it on, lighting up the hangar he rents in red light. He closes his eyes and feels the thrum of its power underneath him, calling to him, begging to be unleashed. The hangar doors open and Keith speeds off into the glittering night.

In the desert, Keith lived in isolation, his nearest neighbors miles away. He never expected to enjoy a city, but this one is different. This one is  _home_. He zips through traffic, flying past commuters and delivery hovers with manic energy. The sleek, black hoverbike moves with an ease only the Galra’s technology can. Riding on it is as close to flying he can get without sprouting wings from his back.

Too soon he enters the quadrant his apartment is in, the downside of speeding. His building is one of many in a quiet residential area: tall, dark, with blue lights on the sides. There’s a communal yard Keith likes to play in, a gym if Keith feels like working out, and a pool if he or Kosmo want to swim. He scans his hand at the gate and waits until the scanner pings in acceptance, allowing him to pass through the gates and into the garage where an assortment of vehicles belonging to the other residents are parked. In his unbiased opinion, his hoverbike is by far the nicest in the garage. He says a mournful goodbye, promising that he’ll take her for a proper spin soon, outside of the city’s limits in the canyons. They remind him of the ones around Garrison but the drops are higher on Daibazaal, the challenge tougher.

In the elevator, he scrolls through his communicator. There’s a message from Pidge, not urgent, and pings from a dozen Blades wanting to spend time with him while he’s on leave. He ignores them, knowing they won’t mind, and sends a ping to Krolia that he’s arrived home. She doesn’t respond which isn’t a surprise. Krolia is here for work, not for leisure like Keith. She’s probably busy with Coalition or Council work.

Thinking about the Council makes Keith shudder. They’re constantly harping on him to join them, sometimes going as far as asking him to lead them. They refuse to understand that he’s happier working at the ground level helping people directly, not writing laws and making speeches.

Keith taps his pin into a keypad, _2923,_ to unlock his apartment door.

A cool female voice greets him when he turns on the lights. “Welcome back, Keith. What can I do for you and your guest?”

Keith takes off shoes and sets his bag down in the living room. Four years after buying the apartment, it’s finally starting to collect Things. Within sight are a handmade coat rack from Kolivan, a collection of Earth cacti he’s illegally smuggled into Daibazaal, impractical novelty shot glasses from Zethrid in the shape of animals from her home planet, Red and Black Lion pillows (merchandise from the Broadway version of Voltron’s story), and a coffee table made out of his father’s old radio equipment.

He crosses into the kitchen for something to drink, pulling out a cup with  _Universe’s Lamest Boss_  written on the side—a joke gift from Ezor.

“Krilla, can you—wait, guest? What guest?”

Krilla’s mechanical voice speaks but Keith doesn’t hear her.

“Um, I think she means me.”

Shiro steps out from the shadows.

Keith’s cup shatters on the kitchen floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have much written, much to go. This is a heavy fic for me to write. I’m working on other things at the same time to unwind so expect this to take me a while to finish.
> 
> (i dunno what “a while” means either)


	2. antigen

When Shiro opens his eyes the pink light of Allura’s quintessence is gone and he’s in a room he doesn’t recognize. Lights leak through porous curtains, giving the room a warm glow. Nothing Shiro can see looks Garrison issued. He could be in an officer’s room. They have free reign to customize their living space, but his instincts tell him this isn’t the Garrison. There’s an otherness to it. The massive bed doesn’t look human-sized, and there’s a poster on the wall of a Galran ship.

A row of projections, rotating like a screensaver, gives him an idea of the room’s owner. The largest projection is in the center, displaying a view of the desert near the Garrison at sunset. The center projection changes the slowest; the desert landscape is the only one he recognizes. The rest are alien landscapes of planets he doesn’t know.

To the left and right are smaller projections. A view of a sleek hoverbike with Keith sprawled across it smiling coyly at the camera, his hair in a long braid. His black riding suit clings worse than the Blade suit. Keith in a leather jacket, his hair loose and messy, with a group of Galra at his side that include Lotor’s generals. Keith on a beach wearing swimming trunks, his shirt unbuttoned and flowing in the breeze. Keith with Krolia in front of a waterfall. Keith with Pidge, Hunk, and Romelle striking a pose in a touristy Danish Village. Keith with Lance and Hunk at Disneyland; there are markings under Lance’s eyes. Keith with the wolf grown gigantic. Another beach, another pair of swimming trunks, shorter, bolder, no shirt blocking his shapely arms or the scars on his chest and shoulder. Keith rests his head on bare knees, his hair wet and clinging to him. The projection changes, but it’s a photo of the same beach trip. Keith tilts his head to the side and looks up at the camera with a soft, shy smile.

Shiro doesn’t want to look at the projections anymore.

He opens the first door he finds but it’s a walk-in closet filled with leather jackets, dark leggings, and a nest of blankets covered in blue fur. He tries another door—a bathroom with a tub the size of a spa in the center of it. The third, last door he tries takes him out of the room and into a dim hallway. He wanders into a living room. The curtains are drawn in this room too and he considerings peeking behind them. He finds he doesn’t want to, not yet.

He would like to believe he’s dreaming but nothing about this feels like a dream. He pinches his side and feels it. This place is real. Shiro is real.

The front door opens; lights flicker on above the passageway between the living room and kitchen. Shiro stares openmouthed as Keith walks past him and casually drops his bag on a sofa. His hair is long, styled in a simple braid, and his face is impossibly prettier but he’s otherwise unchanged.

A female voice comes from the walls and when Shiro announces his presence Keith’s cup shatters on the floor.

“Shiro?“ he asks in disbelief.

“Keith, you know who I am?” Keith knows him, it’s a relief. But Shiro wasn’t in any of his photographs. Maybe he was the photographer.

“What? Of course I know who you are.” He crosses his arms. “Shiro, what the hell is going on. Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I was wandering the Garrison’s halls when I head Allura’s voice. I walked into this pink light and  _whoosh_ ”—he makes a swooping motion with the floating hand—”I was here. Which—I’m not exactly sure where here is?”

Keith’s face crumples. “Allura?” He leans against the kitchen counter for support. “Did you see her?”

“Not exactly. I think—I think saw her quintessence?”

Keith begins to pace; Shiro worries he’s going to step on the broken glass. “We need to tell someone. Pidge! She’s in the area. And Coran maybe, since Altea isn’t that far. He’ll get the message right away.”

“Wait— _Altea_? What do you mean by Altea?”

Keith takes in his appearance and frowns. “How old are you, Shiro?”

He has to think about it. “Twenty-six? Twenty-seven? I’m not sure how to count the four years we lost or the time I was dead.”

“Well, this is weird.” Keith looks down at his hands. “I’m twenty-eight. Shiro, I think you’ve traveled through time.”

 

⼮

In a way, it’s more of a surprise that this is Shiro’s first experience with time travel. Alternate realities, evil clones, space vampires, robot lions, magic and alchemy—he’s seen a lot since being kidnapped by the Galra and the conclusion he’s drawn is that the universe is vast and strange. Time travel feels inevitable. It’s scientifically possible—unlike some of the things he’s experienced—though with Allura’s involvement he doubts this is the  _scientific_  kind of time travel.

Future Keith proves he’s still Keith when Shiro yawns. He immediately insists that Shiro gets some rest and leads him to the bedroom. The oversized bed is soft and cozy; Shiro falls asleep immediately, surrounded by Keith’s comforting scent.

In his dreams, pink light surrounds him. It floats, like fireflies on a summer night, like dandelions scattering in the wind.

“What do you want?” Shiro asks the light.

The light speaks, not in words but in images. A man standing alone in a field of purple flowers, his back to Shiro. A child laughs, running to him, and when Shiro sees its face he recoils. It’s blank. No mouth, no eyes, no nose—nothing.

“I don’t understand.”

The rocket to Kerberos launches. The crowd watches in jubilation. The boy is no exception, he’s happy too. It makes the tears trailing down his face easy to ignore.

In the desert, the setting sun bathes the boy in orange. He stares at the sky, waiting for someone.

A woman in a pink dress holds a faceless child. The child grows into a faceless woman. The man from the field screams for her, but she can’t answer him.

Shiro dances with a man he doesn’t know. He searches the guests around them, looking for a familiar mop of dark hair. A frustration that doesn’t belong to this day bubbles under his skin when he can’t find him. He wills it down.  _He’s happy._  He’s happy.

Shiro dreams turn to blissful darkness.

 

⼮

Shiro wakes up without a sense of where or  _when_  he is. It could be the apartment he shares with Adam, his bunk on the spaceship taking him to Kerberos, his prison cell in the Galra Empire. All of them seem possible. His head is a jumbled mess of memories out of order, not all of them his.

A dog whines as he sits up, the sound narrowing down the possibilities of what reality he’s woken to. His eyes find the space wolf sitting on the floor, watching him. The Garrison then, that’s where he is. The space wolf is here to let him know Keith is awake. Maybe it will take him to Keith.

The space wolf sits up and its size makes his brain orient to the right person, the right memories. He’s Shiro, and he’s in the future. The whole time travel thing wasn’t a dream. He’s jumped forward six years, going off of Keith’s age and barring any more space whale incidents.

Keith is  _alive_  in the future.

He wakes up from his coma and  _survives._

Shiro feels like he can breathe for the first time in weeks.

His internal clock says it’s morning, time to get up. The light behind the curtains is still artificial, suggesting his internal clock is full of shit. Unfortunately, he can’t force himself to sleep. His body is buzzing with a feeling that’s half excitement and half fear.

He slithers out of the room cautiously, unsure if Keith is asleep or awake. His internal clock doesn’t bother telling him how much time has passed.

Keith is curled up on the sofa with a tablet in his hand, scrolling through something in Galran. A book maybe? Shiro can’t read a word of it with his limited knowledge of the language but he recognizes a sprinkling of Galran quotation marks throughout the text. Keith’s eyes fly across the screen; whatever he’s reading has his full attention.

Shiro clears his throat. “Hey.”

Keith’s tablet clatters on the hard floor. Luckily, it’s sturdier than his cup and remains undamaged from the fall.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Shiro apologizes.

“It’s fine. I just got a little too into reading.” Keith picks up his tablet and tucks a stray lock of hair behind his ear. “How are you feeling?”

“About as great as can be expected after finding out I’m stranded six years in the future.”

As usual, Keith ignores his sarcasm.

“You can sleep more if you’re still tired. Or let me know if you’re hungry or thirsty. Whatever you need, I’m happy to help.” Keith stares straight ahead at a turned off viewscreen.

“Can’t sleep, it’s morning for me. I’d like to ask a few questions though if that’s okay.”

This gets Keith to look at him. “Of course, why wouldn’t it be?”

Shiro makes a vague half-shrug. “Keeping the timeline intact and all that.”

Keith’s eyebrows furrow in thought as he looks away. “I'm not sure that's the goal.”

An uncomfortable feeling settles in Shiro's stomach. He thinks about the pictures in Keith’s room. “Where are we exactly? You were surprised to see me but not—not ‘I’m back from the dead’ again surprised.”

“Before I answer, can I ask when you’re from exactly? Not the date, but anything that’s happened recently that I would remember?”

“Uh, you killed Sendak a few weeks ago, fought a weird mech, crashed to Earth, and lately you’ve been in a coma.” When Shiro summarizes it like that, it almost doesn’t sound like a big deal. Almost. “If that jogs your memory.”

Keith snorts. “Yeah, that sounds familiar. Well, spoiler alert, I wake up from my coma. We find out the mech was from Honerva. A bunch of battles happen, that frankly blend into each other. We defeat Honerva, sort of, but it’s a bit too late. Some shit happens, reality is saved. Daibazaal and Altea are restored. A year later the lions disappear.”

Shiro raises his eyebrows. “Wow, wow. That’s—a lot.” Most of the information goes past his head. Honerva? He focuses on the positive. “Daibazaal and Altea, huh? I bet that made Allura happy. And you get to see—no, get to  _live_  on the planet your mother’s family are from? Wow, that’s great Keith.”

Keith bites his lip and stares unsmiling at the coffee table, his eyes far away.

“Isn’t it?” Shiro asks.

“There’s something you need to know before we keep going. The reason I think you're here.” He pauses, steeling himself. He hunches over, bringing his knees to his chest. “Allura died. She sacrificed herself to save reality. That’s why Daibazaal and Altea are back. It was the last thing she did. At least, that’s what we thought.” He turns his head toward Shiro. “Then you showed up.”

The room’s temperature seems to drop as Keith’s words settle around them. “Allura… dies?”

“I sent a message to Pidge. I think it will be easier to talk to her first. Coran… I don’t want to get his hopes up. The rest of you are on Earth. There’s a few vargas delay for communication between here and Earth. Until Pidge gets back to us, we just have to wait.”

Keith plays with the end of his braid. He keeps talking, but Shiro’s grief as Allura’s death settles over him Keith’s voice stops registering. Keith must realize Shiro has stopped paying attention; he goes silent and reaches a hand out to comfort him. Shiro looks at gratefully, craving the contact, but Keith pulls his hand back before it can touch him.

Keith crosses his arms, tucking his hands underneath his elbows as if forcing them to stay there. Everything suddenly feels awkward and  _too much_. Shiro hates it.

“You asked if I was hungry.” Shiro can’t keep the hurt out of his voice but if Keith notices, he doesn’t let on. “I could probably eat something. It’s been awhile.”

“Of course, I can make—ah. Actually, I can’t make anything. I haven’t been shopping yet. But we can eat out if that’s okay?”

“Yeah, I’d like that. Authentic Galran food? Sign me up.”

A small smile appears on Keith’s face, tentative but true. “You say that now, but just wait until your eyes are watering and your mouth is burning.”

Shiro looks down at his clothes. “I’ll probably need something to change into though. Unless you think no one will notice I’m in pajamas.”

“They probably won’t,” Keith says, “but I think I have something isn’t pajamas for you to wear.”

Shiro waits in the bedroom doorway while Keith digs through his closet. He grabs a few pieces of clothing that were shoved far in the corner and hands them to Shiro. The patterns are dizzying and printed in bright, flamboyant colors. They look big for Shiro, let alone Keith. He uses a long blue and violet cloak with twisting floral patterns to cover up the blinding color storm underneath. Shiro feels like a toddler in an adult clown costume.

When Keith sees him fully dressed he makes a face like he’s just sucked on a lemon. Not the reaction Shiro wants when a beautiful man looks at him.

“That bad, huh?” Shiro asks.

“Sorry. I’d give you my clothes but then you’d have the opposite problem with everything being way too tight.”

Shiro’s mouth moves without his permission. “How did you end up with clothes my size-ish anyway?”

“My ex, uh, left some of his things here.”

The air leaves Shiro. He chokes, starts coughing and wheezing. He braces against the wall for support, wonders briefly if this is how he’s going to die: six years in the future, having a coughing fit as his brain goes on overdrive processing the bomb Keith casually drops.

_Keith has an ex._

Keith has an ex  _who is a man._

“Are you okay?” Keith asks, his delicate features forming into worry.

“Just, the air—went in. Wrongly. Yeah.” Shiro thinks he might be clenching his teeth while his mouth is open. He’s not sure what that means. Maybe he’s having a stroke. “Ex, uh, ex-boyfriend, huh. Congratu—no, I mean, not congratulations. That’s the wrong to say. Um, clearly he didn’t deserve you. Also, his taste in fashion is terrible. There are many, uh, fish in a barrel.”

“He was a nice guy, actually.” Keith looks at Shiro for only a moment before grabbing a jacket off his coatrack.

“Oh.”

“We should get going.”

Shiro nods and gives Keith a thumbs up. Thankfully, Keith doesn’t notice as he uses his right arm and at some point, it drifted off into another room. Probably to hide from Shiro in embarrassment.

Keith lives in what turns out to be an apartment building. He leads Shiro to a garage and stops in front of the sleek, black hoverbike from his pictures. It’s a beautiful piece of machinery, the technology of it well beyond that of the hoverbikes he and Keith used to race with. Those hoverbikes were bulky, clunky things. They took up space.

They also  _had_  space.

Shiro wishes Keith’s black hoverbike had space.

They both stare at the compact hoverbike, hesitating. They’ll both fit, but it will be tight. Considering Keith seems scared to touch him even briefly, riding on a hoverbike as Shiro clings to him might trigger a breakdown.

“Nothing we could walk to is open this late, except for the convenience store. That’s always open.”

“I didn’t travel across time for convenience store food,” Shiro jokes.

“You're right,” Keith says seriously.

And that’s that.

When Keith peels out of the garage Shiro forgets about the awkwardness between them, the gnawing fear he’s making Keith uncomfortable with his touch, the tension that radiates off Keith when he rests his hand on Keith’s hips, because he’s too busy gasping and gaping.

The Galra always had a way with design. He managed to admire that about them even as the things they designed kept trying to kill him.

Keith chuckles. “It's not what you were expecting I bet.”

“Definitely not.” The city’s steep, winding hills remind him of San Francisco. The view from Keith’s apartment is spectacular. The city unfurls beneath them, an array of glittering lights that put Vegas to shame. In this place, Shiro’s dark floral coat feels drab. “It's so colorful.” Dark blues and violets dominate the city’s lights but they’re not the only colors there. Reds, oranges, yellows, greens—everywhere Shiro turns there’s color. They zip by a building decorated in flashing rainbow lights and Shiro wonders if rainbows mean the same thing to the Galra as they do to humanity. Probably not, but it’s nice nonetheless to imagine they just sped by a gay bar.

“Who would have guessed once we were allowed to use whatever colors we wanted we’d go wild?” Keith twists and turns through tunnels of light with practiced ease. “The buildings are mainly dark greys and blacks but who knows how long that will last? It’s only a matter of time before we discover paint exists.”  _We_  tumbles from Keith naturally and without artifice. It gives Shiro a strange feeling. He connects Keith’s heritage to the Blades, not to the ordinary, everyday Galra masses.

Keith flies them into a bright, crowded part of the city. Galra of every shape and size—and a few other aliens—walk the streets. The enormity of the pedestrian traffic reminds him of Tokyo in the daytime, during a busy weekend.

Keith parks and Shiro stares.

Street vendors and restaurants fill the air with smells that make his mouth water in anticipation. A gigantic, blue Galra calls out as he pushes a food cart covered in a delicious smelling, sizzling meat. A child stops him, dragging an exasperated parent along, and he fixes up something that looks like a hotdog for her. Rows of stores advertise everything in the universe. A woman calls out to them, tries to hand them a flyer, but Keith waves her away. They walk by bars where sports Shiro have never seen before play on viewscreens and pass by clubs with thumping music that rattle his skull. Shiro stops for a full minute to stare in the window of the Galra equivalent of a cat café. The “cats” are definitely not Earth cats, but they’re close enough and cute enough that it’s with great reluctance that Shiro finally walks away from them.

“I guess we never really spent time exploring alien cities with Voltron, huh? You missed the space mall, and Earth is just starting to rebuild where you’re from.”

“Does Earth look like this?” he asks, incredulous. He can’t imagine it. Alien refugees are flocking to Earth but many of them are sleeping in tents—Earth is far from this type of progress.

“Daibazaal, especially the capital, is unique but Earth isn’t far from it, last I checked.”

“And when was that?”

Keith crosses his arms. “Ten, eleven months ago? There was a summit. I try to visit at least once a year to see Dad’s grave with Mom. She’s a Coalition representative for the Galra, along with Kolivan, and splits her time between Daibazaal and Earth.”

“And you? Do you live full time on Daibazaal?”

There’s a flash of  _something_  on Keith’s face. “I don’t live anywhere full time. I’ve made the Blades into a humanitarian organization. I dedicate a few weeks to them, usually traveling, and then I’m back on Daibazaal for a while on leave.”

“A humanitarian organization, huh? That’s amazing, Keith.”

Keith ducks his head and almost walks into a street vendor. “It’s not a big deal.”

Shiro has to be vigilant in following Keith. He’s small and slight compared to most of the crowd and wearing dark clothes that blend into the night despite all the lights. Shiro follows after his bright red boots more than anything, which is why when Keith abruptly stops Shiro walks right into his back.

“Sorry,” Shiro says, though for once Keith doesn’t react to his touch.

Keith stares at the doors of a restaurant. The decor has a dark, muted color scheme; it reminds him of Buca di Yogi’s, an Italian-Japanese fusion restaurant near the Garrison that Shiro used to take Keith to.

Keith takes a step forward, then turns around and walks to the edge of the sidewalk.

“Keith?”

“Sorry, I’m just—well you’ll see.”

Keith gathers himself and pushes the restaurant’s doors open.

“Welcome to Ve—“ Their hostess’s words turn into squeaks when she sees Keith and she drops a pile of menus. The sound is disconcerting to hear from someone over seven feet tall.

“It’s Keith,” someone whispers.

“What, where?” A male voice says loudly.

“Like, the Keith?” A woman cranes her neck.

“Are you sure it’s not just some random human?” A voice scoffs.

“It’s definitely him—he has the scar.”

“Where? I can’t see him.” A man starts jumping.

A woman turns to her friend and points to Shiro. “There’s someone standing next to him. A human?”

A child starts to throw a tantrum. “Mommy, I want to see Keith!”

A tall, broad Galra man in a chef’s uniform pushes past the small crowd forming around Keith and Shiro. “Now, now. Enough gawking. This is a restaurant, not a zoo.” His booming voice jolts the crowd back into proper politeness and they give Keith and Shiro space to follow the man to a booth in a secluded corner of the restaurant.”

“Thanks, Ver,” Keith says to the man.

“Don’t mention it. You’re lucky they didn’t realize who this one is, or even I wouldn’t have been able to make them back off.” He hands Shiro a menu. “You  _are_  the famous Admiral Shirogane, aren’t you?”

“Uh—yes, in a manner of speaking.”

Ver raises a bushy purple eyebrow. “Did I get the title wrong? Or do you not use it anymore?”

“Ver, we’re trying to keep a low profile,” Keith hisses.

“Could have fooled me with that way Shirogane is dressed like a pavsunger,” Ver says, pointing at where Shiro’s orange and green shirt is peeking out.

“What’s a pavsunger?” Shiro asks.

“It’s basically a peacock—if a peacock was a pterodactyl instead of a bird,” Keith explains.

“Oh, that’s great.” It doesn’t sound great at all.

“We serve pavsunger,” Ver says thoughtfully, “if you’d like to try it. Very chewy, can be a bit stringy though.”

Shiro uses all of his skills in diplomacy to answer. “Maybe next time.”

Ver leaves them to look over their menus which Shiro pretends to do but as it’s all in Galran he has to wait for Keith to translate.

“Don’t expect Hunk’s cooking,” Keith warns him. “Galran cuisine isn’t for everyone and like most Galra these days, Ver experiments—combing the old and new. Sometimes that can be a great thing, and other times it can be a bit of a mess.

Shiro picks based on Keith’s suggestions. Keith knows him like no one else does. If he says Shiro will like something, Shiro believes him.

“So you’re kind of famous,” Shiro comments after their starstruck waitress takes their orders.

Keith pours himself a cup of something that could be tea or coffee but is probably neither. “We all are.”

“They didn’t recognize me,” Shiro points out.

“They’re not expecting you to be here. You’re supposed to be on Earth.”

“I have white hair, a floating arm, and I’m not Galra. I  _think_  I stand out a bit. Especially, considering I’m with you and we’re kind of a set.”

Keith’s face twists into something ugly and vicious. “They’re not expecting you to be me with any more than they’re expecting you to be off Earth.”

Keith sips from his cup and looks at anything that isn’t Shiro.

They sit in silence until the waitress brings their food.

The last time Shiro saw Keith was when he jumped out of the Black Lion like Shiro’s personal guardian angel and killed Sendak with one slash of his sword. He rushed to Shiro’s side and cradled him, the soft smile on his face more beautiful than every star, every nebula, every planet. He looked at Shiro like no one ever had. If the other paladins hadn’t interrupted them, maybe Shiro would have—

Maybe—

It doesn’t matter.

Clearly.

_What happened between us_? Shiro wants to ask, but he’s afraid the answer will be  _nothing. Nothing_  happens between them. They live separate lives on separate planets, and everything Shiro thought was building between them fizzles out, and one day Keith dates a guy that isn’t Shiro and it’s not a big deal.

“You should sprinkle brala flakes on the meat.”

“Huh?”

Keith points to a strange looking salt shaker. “Those are brala flakes.”

Shiro takes the suggestion and covers his meat in green flakes. When Shiro tries the meat again the flavor seems to have increased tenfold. “Woah.”

“Told you. It brings out the flavor.” Keith turns his head to look for the chef before whispering conspiratorially. “Ver’s santuine is inedible without it. Don’t tell him I said that.”

Shiro accepts his words as the olive branch they are. “My lips are sealed.” He mimes closing a zipper across his mouth.

The rest of the evening goes smoothly. Shiro asks a lot of questions about Keith’s Blade work. He can’t keep the awe out of his expression when Keith explains what he does, the places he’s been, and the people he’s helped. Keith’s face lights up the most when he talks about the orphanages the Blades have built, how they’re making sure all the children displaced by the war have a home and are given opportunities to achieve whatever futures they want.

Shiro is so damn proud of Keith. He must say it at least a dozen times, like a broken record repeating itself. He can’t help it. He genuinely means it each time the words leave his mouth. Keith has grown up to be the kind of man Shiro always knew he could be.

Keith leaves the restaurant smiling, buzzing with something familiar. He walks at Shiro’s side, not ahead of him this time, and lets Shiro explore. The cat café provides them with something that tastes like a blend of hot chocolate and hot cider that bizarrely works. The alien cats behave much like real cats, he can’t say their Knowing eyes are that much different from an Earth cat’s.

A floor fountain puts on a show in the middle of a park. Water blasts into the air with accompanying lights. A Galra boy runs into the water and Shiro doesn’t even need his translator to understand his mother’s frustrated fury as she attempts to coax him away from the fountain.

“What a brat,” Keith says, smirking.

“I bet you were the kind of kid that ran into fountains,” Shiro says. Even this Keith, grown up and mature, living in a city, has a wildness to him.

“I’ll have you know I was a good kid,” Keith lies.

Shiro watches the boy evade his mother’s attempt to grab him. “I was that kind of kid that wanted to run into a fountain, but never did.”

“What about as an adult?” Keith asks. “Do you still stop yourself from doing what you want?”

Shiro bites his lip. “Well,” he says, grabbing Keith by the arm and pulling him past the exasperated mother and her mischievous son.

The floor lights up, their final warning, before water blasts them. The water is cool but in the summer-like night, it’s a pleasant balm. Keith yells, but it’s not like Shiro dragged him unwillingly. Shiro barely pulled him, barely held onto his arm. Keith followed him of his own violation.

The mother stares at them open-mouthed, and perhaps a few people passing by do too, but Shiro doesn’t care. Keith’s stupid grin is worth their staring.

When they’ve dried in the heat, dripping water all over a park bench, an unspoken agreement that it’s time to leave is decided.

On the ride back the city’s dazzling lights don’t overwhelm him anymore, giving him ample opportunity to focus on the feel of Keith’s back against his chest, the hard muscle underneath Keith’s jacket, the way Keith’s trim waist is dwarfed by his prosthetic hand.

Shiro closes his eyes and pretends this Keith is his Keith. They’re not flying through a city that doesn’t exist yet but through a desert, the milky way glittering above them in a call to adventure.

The illusion is broken when Keith pulls into his building. Shiro scrambles off the hoverbike, suddenly nervous. This isn’t his Keith, and this isn’t a familiar planet. The soft atmosphere gains an edge.

A blue glow brings the space wolf trying to leap into Keith’s arms. Keith swiftly dodges, a necessary action if he doesn’t want to be crushed, and gives it a nice pat on the head. The wolf doesn’t seem to mind. The wolf teleports them into Keith’s apartment.

Keith opens the curtains, revealing how high up they are. The city shines below, dazzling and unreal. He can see the end of it, where the lights stop and the darkness begins. He thinks he can make out rock structures along the horizon, but he isn’t sure.

“Pidge hasn’t responded yet.” Keith scrolls through a small communicator. “She’s probably busy.” Keith yawns and pockets the communicator. “I’ve been up a while. I think I’m going to crash.”

Keith shows Shiro how to use the entertainment system before slinking off with the wolf to sleep.

Shiro gets his ass kicked playing Keith’s video games by what he guesses are Galra twelve-year-olds. They shout at him when he makes the mistake of turning on the chat feature; he guesses they’re yelling obscenities, as his translator doesn’t work on most of what they say.

He channel surfs and finds out the Galra have a penchant for soap operas and violent sports. Which isn’t a surprise, even if it’s disconcerting to go from a sport that looks like a hybrid of lacrosse and pro wrestling, to melodrama Shiro’s grandmother would have enjoyed.

The drama ends on a cliffhanger. Shiro picks up Keith’s tablet from the coffee table. Figuring out how it works makes him feel like an old person fumbling with new technology. To his confusion, he accidentally pulls up Keith’s message logs.

The first log is between Keith and Pidge (the tablet must be synced with the smaller communicator) which is the only reason Shiro recognizes he’s looking at messages. Keith writes to her in English, the rest of the logs are written in Galran. He doesn’t open the message to Pidge; he’s not interested in snooping through Keith’s messages. He tries to close the messaging app when a thought occurs to him: there might be messages between Keith and Shiro on the tablet—the other, future Shiro.

It’s not snooping if the messages are for him, right?

It takes him a while to find his name. He has a feeling the names are ordered by most recent activity. He scrolls past Hunk, Romelle, and even Lance before he finally finds himself in a sea of unreadable text.

> 2/29/2128 KEITH: Happy Birthday!! 🥳

Attached to the message is a picture of Keith and the wolf, both of them smiling into the camera. Below it is Shiro’s response.

> 3/5/2128 SHIRO: Thanks.

Shiro stares at the short response, at the amount of time it took for Shiro to reply. There was a delay in sending messages between Daibazaal and Earth, which could explain the time. That still didn’t explain why the reply was so curt.

Shiro scrolls further up the message thread, all worries of invading Keith’s privacy gone.

> 12/2/2127 KEITH: reunions coming up soon. want a ride?  
> 12/2/2127 SHIRO: I wouldn’t want to make you go out of your way. I’m fine hitching a ride with Hunk and Pidge.   
> 12/2/2127 KEITH: gotcha

Those messages didn’t have a five day delay.

> 10/23/2127 SHIRO: Happy 28th, Keith! 🎉  
> 10/23/2127 KEITH: ugh do you have to include the age? you’re so lucky you’re only 8 yrs old, officially.  
> 10/23/2127 SHIRO: haha  
> 10/23/2127 KEITH: really though, thanks shiro. for everything, always. you’re my best friend.

No delay, but no response to Keith’s declaration of friendship either.

> 9/24/2127 KEITH: hey old timer, i’ll be on earth for the summit. want to go to buca di yogi’s during a break?  
> 9/24/2127 SHIRO: Sadly, I have plans for this weekend. No summit for me. Maybe next time you’re in the neighborhood? 9/24/2127 KEITH: sure 😊

The last time Keith was on Earth. Keith said it was ten or eleven months earlier. In almost a year, these were all the messages they’ve exchanged. Shiro does the math, guesses it’s been five or six months since Keith wished Shiro a happy birthday.

> 7/18/2127 KEITH: i’ll be on earth to visit mom & dad’s grave in august. we should plan something. Maybe get all of the paladins together?  
> 7/19/2127 SHIRO: I’d love to but we’re visiting Curtis’s family in August.  
> 7/19/2127 KEITH: i can push it back to september. It’s not a set thing.  
> 7/20/2127 SHIRO: I know how busy Krolia is going to be in September. It’s fine, Keith.  
> 7/20/2127 KEITH: i do have the fastest ship in at least 20 galaxies. i can make a cross country trip in a blink. maybe you can squeeze in an afternoon off? curtis can come too 🙂👍  
> 7/22/2127 SHIRO: I think his family would be upset. Sorry, Keith. Raincheck for the next time you’re on Earth?  
> 7/22/2127 KEITH: yeah, of course. I get that.  
> 7/22/2127 KEITH: message me if you change your mind or ever just want to joyride across the solar system. my new ship is the fastest thing i’ve flown since red 😃

Shiro keeps scrolling, through years of correspondence, all of it the same. Keith reaches out and Shiro comes up with excuse after excuse as to why he can’t see Keith. Intermingled in these rejections are well wishes for birthdays and holidays and a few conversations that never amount to anything substantial.

Yet, even this is something. They were talking, awkwardly, but  _talking_. Now, they’re not even doing that.

Shiro can’t piece together what happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the bright side of writing is this I get to write THREE different sheiths. past!shiro & past!keith, past!shiro & future!keith, and future!keith & future!shiro. wrow.


	3. diffraction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic is:
> 
> 1) rated E for a reason  
> 2) listed with keith/other dudes for a reason  
> 3) has also gained a tag
> 
> i just love drama, okay? 🙈

 

Sleep eludes Keith. Ninety-nine imaginary sheep leave him tired but awake, staring at the ceiling and wishing he could turn off his brain. An air conditioner hums soothingly, white noise that would normally help him drift off, but tonight sounds like a jet engine. Kosmo snores directly into his ear. Not really—he sleeps on a nest of stolen of blankets in the closet—but that’s what it sounds like.

Pidge still hasn’t responded to him. He sends her another message, highlighting the urgency. The communicator bathes his bedroom in a soft, orange glow. To his mother, he sends an apology. She asked to meet with him earlier, but he was too busy running around the city with Shiro.

Shiro seems to like the city, which makes sense. He grew up in a large city, not an unincorporated part of the desert like Keith. He went on vacations with Adam to famous Capitals of Culture, browsing fancy museums and touring historical monuments. Keith used to make fun of how boring his vacations looked. Many of those cities don’t exist anymore—the Galra destroyed them—but Keith knows from looking at Shiro’s social media that he’s visited the few that are left with Curtis.

Keith rolls over and stares at the crack between his curtains. He contemplates getting up and sitting on the balcony to watch the sunrise but despite how long he’s been up, he knows he’ll be waiting for some time. Daibazaal’s days are longer than Earth’s or Altea’s.

Unable to sleep and too tired for anything else, Keith is left to deal with the consequences of everything he’s been trying to shove away for the past six years flittering through his brain.

In retrospect, the first clue of the demise of their friendship is when Shiro switches from Black to Green on their way to Earth. That action is a telltale sign, the first rejection Keith receives but is too stupid to understand. The next, obvious and glaring, is waking up from a coma and finding out Shiro hasn’t visited and isn’t going to visit. From there are a million moments, tiny and large, that spell out what Keith doesn’t grasp until James is telling him that Shiro is dating someone named Curtis.

_I love you._

Once he takes away the hope born from a desperate heart, he’s not surprised Shiro doesn’t reciprocate his feelings. Keith is five years younger and woefully inexperienced when Shiro starts dating Curtis. Keith isn’t on Shiro’s radar as anything more than a little brother type, the kid Shiro mentored. Shiro knows his baggage, knows his insecurities, and knows they’re not what he wants to deal with from a partner. After breaking up with Adam, Shiro dated around, never anything serious, but Keith remembers the men he was with and none of them looked a thing like Keith. They were tall and filled out, handsome and not  _pretty_. As a teenager, Keith deluded himself into thinking a growth spurt was just around the corner but at twenty-eight he’s accepted he is what he is, that’s someone Shiro was never going to be interested in.

The ending of their friendship is gradual. Up until the wedding, they talk. They’re not as close as before, but Keith understands that their former closeness is born of circumstance, not a closeness of their choosing. Voltron is the reason their friendship lasts beyond the day Shiro leaves for Kerberos; it was always going to end when Shiro came back to Earth. All that Voltron did was delay the inevitable.

After the wedding, Keith leaves Earth and cuts off all contact with Shiro. He’s not sure Shiro notices. The wedding brings a new chapter in Shiro’s life. He retires, settles on the East Coast near a new branch of the Garrison that Curtis has been transferred to. Keith’s absence is of no consequence to him. Keith remakes himself into a person not pining after a married man. He gets his first real boyfriend, and even if that doesn’t work out, he feels a little less impossible to love. After the breakup, Keith contacts Shiro and finds out leaving Earth ended whatever was left between them. Shiro isn’t interested in seeing him. They talk, but it’s like pulling teeth, and Keith doesn’t know how to change it. He wants to, despite his crushed romantic feelings, because Shiro is  _Shiro—_ an irreplaceable part of his life. Maybe they can’t ever have their former closeness but they can have _something_.

Keith destroys all chances of rekindling their friendship during the fifth reunion of Allura’s death.

Celebrations for the fifth anniversary of the war’s end are the biggest since the first one, back when everything was still raw. Keith spends the peace celebrations on Daibazaal. They’re a public holiday and Keith is a public figure. He’s begrudgingly part of a parade with Krolia and the Blades and is asked to judge a cake competition. The only reason Keith doesn’t lose his mind is thanks to Zrek joining him, offering his input on which Keith-shaped cake is the most accurate.

Zrek makes Keith forget about the past. Keith met him by happenstance at a dingy little bar at the edge of the city. It isn’t the kind of place Zrek normally goes to but that night he can’t be bothered to line up for some fancy nightclub or trendy bar. He decides to go somewhere closer to home.

They hit it off right away despite Keith’s inability to flirt. Zrek has enough charm for the both of them, cooling informing Keith that he’s the prettiest man in not only the bar but probably the entire city too. Keith promptly tells him to fuck off, which just gets Zrek to laugh an easy laugh, neither offended nor overconfident, and Keith is hooked.

Zrek grew up on a mining colony at the fringes of the Empire. His parents were imprisoned when he was a child and died in captivity, forcing him to work in the mines to survive. The unrest after Zarkon’s death gives the colonists, Zrek included, the chance to overthrow the military and declare themselves an independent planet. Until Daibazaal reappeared, Zrek tried to carve out a life for himself on the mining colony. Keith respects the hardships Zrek has lived through and how he’s still positive and hopeful, not cynical or weary.

Zrek is adventurous and fun, and Keith doesn’t want to say goodbye to that for the Paladin’s reunion. Inviting Zrek doesn’t seem like a big deal. The past two years, Shiro has brought Curtis to the reunion and there was a year Pidge brought what may have been a girlfriend (she punched Lance when he asked, leaving the matter an eternal mystery). Zrek gladly agrees to tag along. Sociable and easy going, by the end of the day, Zrek has exchanged more words with Curtis than Keith has in five years. The usual awkwardness of the reunion is curbed with Zrek by his side. His eyes don’t trail after Shiro hopelessly. Zrek has his attention in all the best ways.

Keith feels light when it’s time for them to head to bed in the rebuilt castle. More than light, he’s feeling adventurous and frisky, which Zrek is more than willing to indulge. Keith sucks Zrek off in the castle’s communal showers, a fantasy Keith has had for a long time. Never letting an opportunity go to waste, Zrek works him open in the shower, knowing by the time they get to their bedroom Keith will be even more impatient.

As it is, they never make it to bed.

Zrek notices the way Keith’s eyes darken with desire when they pass by the observation deck. Another fantasy Zrek is happy to make to real.

The night sky of Altea makes for a beautiful backdrop as Zrek continues where he left off. Keith sits with his back to Zrek’s chest and watches the stars as Zrek’s huge cock enters him with a pleasant burn, stretching him impossibly wide. Keith suspects it’s thanks to his Galra biology that Zrek is able to fit.

Keith places a palm on his stomach where a bulge moves in time with Zrek’s slow thrusts. When Keith tries to hurry him up, bouncing on his cock, Zrek holds him in place. His hands are obscenely large, just like the rest of him, and Keith’s cock twitches from seeing how gigantic they look holding onto his waist. Keith is at Zrek’s mercy, unable to change the pace, a plaything for Zrek to fuck as he pleases.

Keith doesn’t mind at all.

Caught up in the haze of his lust, Keith fails to notice the door to the observation deck opening. No matter how much he searches through his memories, he’s unable to pinpoint the exact moment it happens. All he knows is that Zrek’s pace grows frantic and he looks to the side and sees Shiro, his hair glowing in the starlight, staring at him from across the room.

Keith thinks his mind is confused by the setting. He’s imagining it—Shiro isn’t here. A dream, maybe, and then the light falls on Shiro’s face and Keith knows what he’s seeing is real because his dreams have never been so cruel. Shiro’s face is angry, disgusted, ashamed. Seeing it in the starlight is shattering. It makes Keith feel small.

To Keith’s horror, Zrek chooses that moment to play with his chest, tearing out a cry from his throat. Shiro hearing him is somehow even worse than Shiro seeing him. Something inside of Keith’s heart fractures. Zrek pinches his nipples, sending him spiraling over the edge, and pushes him to the ground. His gentle thrusts turn hard and punishing, and he comes inside of Keith not long after.

When he’s done, Keith searches the room but Shiro is gone. Keith can almost believe he imagined the entire thing, but he knows he hasn’t. There was a reason why Keith was drawn to the observation deck. This was Shiro’s spot of solace and Keith tainted it.

He doesn’t realize he’s crying until Zrek panics, thinking he’s hurt him Somehow that makes Keith cry harder.

Keith calms himself and kisses Zrek gently on the forehead. “No, no, you could never.” He lies, shoves down the need to throw up. “They’re happy tears.”

Zrek believes him. He’s a good person. Kind and sweet, always worried about Keith’s happiness and well-being.

Keith breaks up with him when they get back to Daibazaal.

Until a time-traveling Shiro popped into his apartment, that horrifying moment at the reunion is the last time Keith saw Shiro. Shiro takes off from the reunion before anyone can say goodbye in the morning, maybe even waking Curtis up to leave the moment he gets back from the observation deck. Keith doesn’t know how to make things normal after that, whatever the hell their normal even is anymore. Two months after the reunion he wishes Shiro a happy birthday. Shiro’s muted reply, days later, is another wound to his heart.

Keith doesn’t message him again.

When Keith finally falls asleep his dreams offer him no solace. Memories and mockeries alike flit through his head.

_“Be with the ones you love. You’ve earned it.”_

_I love you._

The sky turns orange. The Black Lion sinks to the ground.

Keith twists and turns through the Atlas’s corridors, but it’s like the ship doesn’t want him to find Shiro.  _I want to see him, please._ The walls melt, revealing the bridge where Shiro is kissing a man Keith doesn’t know. They’re wearing white. Everyone is wearing white.

“White for ‘Shiro.’” Keith laughs at Shiro’s bad joke, knowing the real reason they’re all wearing white is to honor his time as the captain of the Atlas.

Keith’s face freezes into a smile that hurts to hold. It slips when the grooms kiss for the crowd.

The night before the wedding Keith and Shiro sit in a hotel lounge. Keith tries to ignore the way their sides touch as if their bodies are pulling them together against their will. They haven’t talked like this for a long time. About silly things, about hopes and dreams. Shiro is nervous about his retirement.

“Maybe I’m making a mistake.” The glass in Shiro’s hand is almost empty.

“Then don’t retire.”

_Don’t marry him._

“It’s not that simple.”

_I love you._

“It’s as simple you want it to be, Shiro.”

Keith’s hoverbike spins out of control. It should be terrifying but all he can think about is how he made the jump without crashing. He can’t wait to show Shiro— Then he remembers Shiro is dead.

Keith refuses to be Shiro’s best man. “You know me, I’m not big on being in the spotlight. Besides, Lance could use the distraction.”

Lance calls Keith during the bachelor party. Keith was supposed to be there but he chickened out at the last second. Keith ignores the call.

“I can’t wait until it’s your turn to do this.” Keith isn’t the best man, but it doesn’t save him from being a groomsman.

“My turn to do what?”

“Get married,” Shiro says like it’s obvious. That’s what people do. They fall in love and get married, and retire in bliss, all before they’re thirty.

The angry, bitter thought spills into his voice. “You’ll be waiting for the rest of your life.”

Shiro’s bubble of happiness can’t be touched by Keith. “You don’t know that. The right person might be just around the corner. Maybe you’ve even already met them.”

In reality, Keith says, “I’m not the marrying type.” But this isn’t reality. It’s a dream.

“I’ve met the person I want to spend the rest of my life with, he just doesn’t feel the same about me.”

“You’re wrong,” Shiro says. Not possible. Keith is righter about this than he’s ever been about anything. He loves Shiro, and Shiro doesn’t love him.

But dream Shiro doesn’t know that. Dream Shiro kisses him soft and sweet like he’s been waiting for the moment.

The crowd cheers. This time Keith’s smile doesn’t slip.

Shiro’s soft kisses turn heated. He slides Keith’s Blade suit off of his shoulder, kisses the ugly scar there, and keeps going. Shiro takes his time to undress him, kisses him reverently at each new square of bare skin.

“I have a present for you.” Keith holds the back of his thighs, so Shiro can take a good look at what he’s unwrapped.

“All of this is for me?” He pushes Keith’s legs further against his chest.

Keith nods. Who else would it be for?

Shiro kisses between his legs, his mouth hot and warm. Keith wants more. He needs more. He tugs at Shiro’s hair, guides his lovely mouth to where it should be. Shiro’s tongue dips inside of him.

Keith cries out in his sleep.

 

⼮

A loud banging startles Keith awake, interrupting his dreams. He’s not sure if he should be thankful or angry. Having sex dreams about Shiro isn’t new—that ship sailed when he was fourteen—but it’s been a while since his subconscious has betrayed him so thoroughly.

A short woman bursts into his room, not a single care for his privacy or his eardrums.

“I can’t believe you would do this,” she yells passionately. If she didn’t already have a job, Keith would recommend she audition for a Galran drama. “I didn’t take you for a homewrecker, but I guess I was wrong! I was wrong about both of you!”

For a moment, Keith thinks Pidge knows about his dreams. Then Shiro trails in after her, his hands moving in a motion that looks like he’s attempting to placate a wild animal right before it eats him.

“Pidge, what are you talking about.” It’s too early in the morning for this.

“What am I—what am I talking about?” Keith once saw a chihuahua barking at a coyote. Pidge reminds him of that chihuahua. “I get a bunch of messages from you asking me to get in touch because it’s _urgent_ , and when I message you back there’s no response. Of course, I’m panicking at this point, hacking into Galra databases, looking up news reports, searching the web. And guess what I find?” Pidge claps between words to emphasize her question. “A bunch of photos of you and Shiro galavanting across Yorak City!”

“Yorak City?” Shiro asks.

“Mom named it.” Keith doesn’t love the name, but he’s forever grateful the Council’s nomination of “Keith City” didn’t win the vote instead.

“I love you both but I can’t let you do this. Shiro is married. It’s not right.”

“I’m married?”

“Oh my god, Shiro has brain damage.” She stares at Shiro with pity. “Why didn’t you say something earlier. Did Curtis leave him?”

“Who’s Curtis?”

Keith desperately wants this conversation to end, or at least head to a topic that doesn’t make him want to scream into his pillow.

“Pidge, Shiro doesn’t have brain damage. This isn’t our Shiro—not yet. He’s a Shiro from the past.”

“I’m sorry–what?” Pidge looks at Keith like she’s decided he’s the one that has brain damage instead.

“Somehow,  _this_  Shiro time traveled to the future—as in our present. Where this Shiro’s from, the lions just crashed on Earth after the battle against Luka.”

Pidge squints, taking in Shiro’s clean-shaven face, his grown out hair, and his lack of glasses and wedding ring. “He does look a  _little_  younger,” Pidge relents.

“Even if he wasn’t a time-traveling Shiro, whatever pictures you saw were taken out of context. We went to dinner and explored the city a bit, that’s all.”

“You two certainly looked chummy. They were calling him your mystery man.” Keith’s love life makes for great tabloid fodder; he doubts he made front page news but to Pidge who was looking for it, any photos taken after the fountain incident would have looked particularly not great. Shiro took Zrek’s coat off, leaving him in a revealing, wet silk shirt. Keith’s weak, betraying eyes lingered on the raised bumps on Shio’s chest and the defined lines on his stomach for much too long. “But I guess that makes more sense if this is a younger version of Shiro. Let’s say I believe you for now. Time travel is an entirely theoretical concept. No offense, but I can’t see either of you inventing it.”

Shiro looks worn out, a tired set to his eyes that Keith wants to wipe away. “That’s because we didn’t. I followed Allura’s quintessence. It surrounded me and when it faded I was in the future.”

Pidge’s eyes widen at the mention of Allura. She turns her head away from Keith and Shiro. “Ugh, of course.  _Magic_.” Keith knows her well enough to recognize that her words have no bite.

She presses Shiro for more details, listening intently as he describes the entire ordeal from start to finish.

“But why bring you to Keith?” she asks when he’s done. “Not to your future self? Why not leave you at the Garrison? You didn’t just time travel—you traveled across the universe.”

Shiro bristles. “I don’t know. I didn’t choose where to be dropped off.”

His words sting. Keith can’t let himself forget that this Shiro is still  _Shiro_. He may not mind Keith’s company but given the chance, he’ll make new friends, find new people to spend time with the are more his style than Keith ever could be. “Allura brought back Daibazaal and Altea. Maybe it was easier for her to bring Shiro here.”

“I hate magic,” Pidge grumbles. “How do we get Shiro back to the past? Are we supposed to just wait around for another magical intervention from Allura? And why did she choose Shiro? Seems like a bad move considering Shiro’s track record. How do we know you’re not another clone?”

Fear and guilt flash across Shiro’s face. He’s never talked about the clone with Keith. He’s referenced a few things about Lotor and Zarkon that makes it clear he has the clone’s memories, but that’s the extent of what Keith has ever been able to glean.

Keith nearly jumps out of his bed to stand in front of Shiro, physically blocking him from Pidge’s view to the extent he is able, given their differences in height and build. “He’s not a clone. Look at his arm.”

Pidge doesn’t back down. “That doesn’t prove anything. The schematics for Shiro’s arm are Garrison property. Anyone could hack into that database.”

“ _Anyone_  could not just hack into a Garrison database. Shiro isn’t a clone.” The clone is fresh in this Shiro’s memory. Pidge needs to stop bringing it up. He stands tall, towering over Pidge as he glares at her.

“Keith, it’s okay.” A pleasant weight settles on Keith’s shoulder. The red tank top he wears to bed means Shiro’s hand is touching part of his skin directly. Keith wants to place his hand over Shiro’s and hold it there.

Keith ducks his head down. Shiro’s touch calms his anger even as it sends his heart racing for new reasons.

“If you want to run tests, that’s fine with me,” Shiro says, “Or I can I just open up the paneling in my arm and show you that Allura’s crystal is powering it. The arm can be duplicated, but her crystal is one of a kind.”

“The crystal,” Pidge says, contemplating. “It was with Allura for over ten thousand years. Some of her quintessence might have mingled with it. We’ve never been able to fully understand how it works. There’s also the whole transferring your quintessence from Black to the clone’s body. It’s not  _that_  weird you’re the one she was able to reach. You’re connected.”

“I suppose,” Shiro admits, removing his hand from Keith’s shoulder. 

“We should probably head to Altea. Coran might have a better clue.” Pidge begins to pace.

Keith keeps his voice and expression carefully neutral. “Are you sure? I don’t want to get Coran’s hopes up.”

Pidge shoots him a pained look. “We’re not going to. I hate to break it to you, but even if Shiro travels back and saves Allura it might not change our timeline. Like I said, time travel is still purely theoretical. It’s hard to guess what will happen. But knowing alternate realities exist, there’s a fair chance when Shiro returns to his timeline it will become a separate, parallel universe.”

“And you’ll continue living in this one,” Shiro finishes for her.

She nods.

It’s a blow. Keith can’t rightfully complain about his life. He’s alive, his mother and Kosmo are alive. Shiro is alive and  _happy_  even, something Keith has always wished for him. But they’re not the ones Allura’s death most impacted. Lance and Coran don’t deserve to be stuck in this universe where she’s gone. “I’m not sure we should involve Coran or the others. They’ve all moved on, or are trying to, and bringing all this back—“

“—All of us would jump at the chance to save Allura,” Pidge says fiercely, “even an Allura from an alternate reality.”

“Okay,” Keith says because she’s right. “Tell the others to meet us on Altea.” Keith can’t do it, not when the others include Shiro. Hunk and Lance, maybe, but Shiro will never listen to Keith, not after the reunion.

Keith hopes Pidge can get through to him.

 

⼮

In the years since Allura’s passing, Pidge has spent a lot of time thinking of ways they could have saved her. She’s gone back to the moment where they said goodbye to Allura over and over again. In hindsight, she wonders if sacrificing Voltron itself would have worked. The lions had massive amounts of rift energy and quintessence. It never occurs to her to go back even further in the timeline to save Allura. This opens up new possibilities. They can stop Allura from ever taking in the entity, which Pidge blames for a lot of what happened. They can understand Honvera’s motivations and agenda without diving into her mind. They can appeal to Luka and the other Alteans before it’s too late.

Coran responds enthusiastically when Pidge tells him she’ll be heading his way with Keith. She doesn’t mention their extra passenger. That will be a surprise left to when they meet in person.

Contacting everyone else is a hassle. Daibazaal and Altea are nowhere near Earth. It would be easier to wormhole to Earth’s solar system and  _then_  send a message but unfortunately, it would be an incredible waste of fuel and scaultrite lenses, the equivalent of taking a helicopter because road traffic is a pain in the ass.

Solving the Coalition’s communication issues is actually Pidge’s current pet project and one of the reasons she’s in the Galactic neighborhood. Currently, there’s a heavy delay of hours from Earth to Daibazaal, making real time conversations impossible. Her official funding isn’t from the Garrison or the Coalition, but an Earth telecommunications giant that wants a faster, cheaper way to spread to their media throughout the universe. If Pidge is using their funding to explore avenues that align with her own interests, that’s her business.

She messages Lance first. His schedule is always free even if he likes to pretend otherwise, but unlike Hunk and even Shiro (retired as he is), it’s going to take some effort for Lance to get to Altea. He doesn’t have his own ship like Hunk and isn’t the Garrison’s golden boy that can commandeer whatever he wants like Shiro.

_Get your ass to Altea, ASAP. We have a situation._

Simple and to the point. Prettying up her request is unneeded for Lance. Details too, she can hold off on. He’ll listen to her.

Hunk needs more of an explanation. Not the truth—it will freak him out way too much—but she gives him enough information to understand he’s not being invited to Altea for a vacation.

Pidges messages Shiro last. She doesn’t mention Keith, let alone the fact that there’s an extra version of him running around. The one bright side about the delay in communications is she doubts anyone on Earth has seen Keith running around with Shiro in the tabloids. It’s probably not the kind of gossip that’s popular outside of Daibazaal and the Galra anyway. Keith is a public figure on Daibazaal but to the rest of the universe—especially on Earth—he’s a bit of an enigma, the paladin they can’t quite grasp. In most adaptations of their story, Keith and Shiro’s roles are either combined or rewritten, making Keith Voltron’s leader from the start. The few that bother to let Keith start out as anything but perfect fail to mention he’s half-Galra. On top of that, not a single adaptation mentions Keith is interested in men instead of women. His jaunt around town with “a mystery man” doesn’t have the same appeal when everyone assumes he’s straight. At one point it was incorrectly reported he and Acxa were engaged (Pidge still brings it up sometimes to make fun of him). Earth just doesn’t understand Keith.

 _Coran needs our help_. Not exactly a lie.  _You need to come to Altea. I don’t care what else you have going on right now. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important._

If that didn’t work, she did know what  _would_.

While she’s busy sending messages, Keith and Shiro step out to buy breakfast from a nearby convenience store. They’re in high spirits when they return; Shiro laughs at something Keith says as they walk in. Pidge tries to figure when seeing them together like this became so  _weird_.

“We’ll take my ship,” Pidge informs them when they start eating, anticipating a fight from Keith.

Keith bites into what looks like a boiled egg but is definitely not from a chicken.

“We can both take—” Keith starts, but Pidge sees right through him.

“—Oh no, we’re not taking separate ships, or just your ship. This way you can’t just cut and run.” He won’t do it to be mean. He’ll do it to avoid Shiro. She might not know  _when_ his relationship with Shiro became so strained, but she can guess the reasons for it—or at least the reason why Keith takes it so hard. She’s never going to bring it up though. She’s not here to play therapist.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Keith lies.

“Does your ship have a state of the art laboratory and experimental communications equipment? No? Okay then, we’re taking my—why is Shiro’s rice green?”

Shiro’s mouth is stuffed full of green rice. Keith answers for him. “It’s arroz verde, a type of Mexican rice.”

“The Galra import Mexican food?” She has no idea why, but this information fascinates her. Maybe that telecommunications company is onto something with their desire to air Earth commercials throughout the universe.

Keith shrugs. “It agrees with our palettes. I think Hunk or one of his disciples figured it out.”

Hunk’s disciples could mean any number of the chefs he’s trained, including Shay and Romelle. He doesn’t quite run a culinary school but sometimes it feels like one with how many people flock to him to learn. He’s probably the happiest of the paladins, even if it frustrates her that his engineering talents are going to waste. She can’t decide his life for him.

“The Galra could’ve just asked you what Earth food is good,” Shiro points out as he shoves rice into his mouth.

“I  _might_  be the reason Korean barbecue is now a thing in Yorak City,” Keith admits.

Green rice and freaky eggs consumed, Pidge waits for Keith to pack. The suitcase he chooses is entirely too small. Pidge reminds him they’re taking her ship so he won’t have access to his usual supplies, which sets off a round of grumbling as he packs a larger, more appropriate bag.

The only vehicle Keith owns is a stupid crotch rocket. They can’t use that to get to Yorak City’s cosmodrome so they’re forced to use public transportation, making for an interesting sight on the city’s hoverrail: three humans of varying shapes and sizes, one of them with a floating arm, and a gigantic space wolf (Keith won’t hear of it when Pidge suggests Kosmo should stay behind).

When the hoverrail reaches their stop, Pidge rushes out of it in relief, not giving a shit about who she elbows in the process. They made the serious mistake of traveling during the morning rush hour. Not only is she packed in the carriage like a sardine she’s forced to deal with Kosmo drooling on her. The first thing she’s going to do when they land on Altea is head for the castle’s showers.

“Don’t think for a second you’re going to pilot my ship,” Pidge warns Keith as she pings Chip to lower the ship’s boarding ramp. “Or copilot—that’s Chip’s job.”

Keith rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll let you two do your thing.”

“No backseat piloting either. It makes Chip nervous.” She programmed Chip to be intelligent and helpful, sensitive and polite. She ends up with an overeager, anxious robot that is easily convinced people hate him. It doesn’t help that he’s usually right.

“Who’s Chip?” Shiro asks.

“A pain in the ass,” Keith mutters, shaking his head.

Pidge chooses not to point out that Chip’s hearing far exceeds that of a human’s (or Galra’s) and that he can probably hear Keith shaking his head, let alone his muttering.

Sometimes you just have to let things go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everything posted until now was originally one long chapter so i dunno when i’ll update next. it depends on if i want to stop and edit, or if i’ll write another large chunk and break it up in the editing process.


	4. endogeneity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was trying very hard not to split this chapter from the next part but i failed. this is why i don't have a projected chapter count, lmao.

Chip is Pidge’s robot son. He’s short—barely reaching her shoulders—with blue-grey “skin,” a boyish voice, and an anxious, but polite manner. He’s wearing some sort of uniform Shiro doesn’t recognize and a pair of glasses he does—Pidge’s glasses—even though his eyes are presumably programmed not to need any.

Five minutes into preparations for takeoff Keith makes a snide comment about Chip’s navigational skills that has Chip apologizing for his ineptitude and Pidge threatening to throw Keith out of an airlock. The threat lacks bite as they haven’t left Daibazaal’s surface, but it keeps Keith silent until they breach the atmosphere and Chip takes a sudden swerve that tosses them around the bridge—Keith lets out a stream of comments after that, involving varying degrees of profanity.

Normally, Shiro would think Keith is being childish and cruel to pick on a robot the size and shape of a ten-year-old boy but there’s something about Chip that grates on the nerves and digs up an inexplicable desire to stuff him into a locker. More than once Shiro shares a look of understanding with Keith while Chip talks, their inner jocks in agreement to give him a swirly at the first opportunity.

Luckily for Chip life and Shiro’s sanity, the flight from Daibazaal to Altea is blissfully short. Not so luckily, putting Chip’s life in danger and Shiro near the brink of committing a robot murder, being allowed to land on Altea is a nightmare of bureaucracy and waiting. Artificial rings around Altea power a force field, blocking any unauthorized entry to the planet. Coran was supposed to have submitted a request on their behalf but hasn’t, forcing Pidge to argue with Altea Planetary Protection for at least a varga.

They’re interested in her equipment and work, halfway convinced she’s a spy, and when they find out Keith is one of her passengers they outright accuse her of it as he has ties to the Galra Republic through his mother an (as Shiro finds out) a cousin on the high council (“Second cousin, six times removed actually,” Keith clarifies, not that APP cares). The entire ordeal feels hostile for a planet of supposed diplomats, with APP only letting them through when Coran’s request mysteriously appears in their queue, coincidentally right after Pidge finishes furiously typing on a tablet that they can’t see from the video feed.

Cleared for landing, Pidge and Chip fly them through Altea’s force field without issue; Chips calmly remarks that if they dared to pass through it unauthorized the force field would disable all electronic equipment, which includes not only the ship but himself.

“That would have been terrible,” Shiro says flatly. Pidge scrutinizes him but is either unable to detect his insincerity or decides to let it go. Keith smirks at him in clear approval. Bonding with future Keith over their mutual hatred for Chip should make him feel bad but it doesn’t.

As the planet’s surface comes into view, his first pathetically nerdy thought is that Altea is the Shire to Daibazaal’s Mordor. They fly over lush green forests, dreamlike fields of beautiful flowers, and serene snowcapped mountains until they reach a small town bordering a replica of the Castle of Lions. Pidge lands them in a field at the edge of the town, crushing countless violet flowers in the process.

“Chip, stay here.” Shiro breathes a sigh of relief. Pidge narrows her eyes.

“Aye, aye captain,” Chip replies and gives Pidge a happy salute.

As Shiro exits Pidge’s ship a movement from the village catches his attention. A robot similar to an Altean gladiator patrols the area; it doesn’t spare them a second glance as it passes by. Back on the ship Pidge knocks over a box and swears; the sound is impossibly loud in the quiet of Altea.

Keith swings a large duffle bag onto his shoulder. “You’re probably wondering where everyone is.”

“A little bit,” Shiro admits. He imagined Altea would an active, lively planet like Daibazaal, with bustling megacities and people everywhere. So far, his assumptions are turning out to be wrong.

“There are only a few thousand Alteans in total,” Keith informs him. “And many of them chose to settle elsewhere. Altea looks a lot like Lotor’s simulation which I think brings up bad memories for people. But more than that, they were trapped for so long and then used by Honerva—they’re tired of it all. They just want to enjoy their freedom, explore the universe like they were denied for thousands of years. This town around the castle is actually one of the most heavily populated areas of the planet—which should give you an idea of the rest of it.”

“I know a little what feels like to be trapped somewhere so I get it. But why can’t Alteans share the planet?” In his time Earth is already struggling to cope with all of the refugees flocking to it.

“There are a few refugee children here. But you saw the difficulties of being let into the planet. The Alteans that  _did_  settle here are concerned with preserving Altea’s natural resources and cultural heritage. Taking in refugees is a bit of a hot topic in Altean politics.”

Unsurprisingly given the population size, there’s no real form of public transportation on Altea. Getting to the castle means walking. Pidge straps on a gigantic backpack and leads the way, ignoring Shiro’s offer to carry her backpack. Though lightly populated, Altea is anything but rustic. Altean technology, powered by the cyan light of quintessence, is rampant in every building they pass. He knows from Romelle and Keith that the Alteans Lotor rounded up had limited experience with technology—clearly that’s no longer the case.

Shiro smiles and waves at the Alteans they pass. He gets a few funny looks in return but most of them ignore their group unless it’s to stop and gawk at the space wolf.

“Not a very friendly place,” Shiro mutters when yet another Altean ignores him.

“All of the friendly Alteans are off-planet,” Pidge says. “Isn’t that right, Keith?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Keith grits his teeth in a manner that suggests he knows exactly what she’s talking about and would prefer her to shut up.

“One of Keith’s exes was Altean.” Pidge nudges Shiro’s side conspiratorially. “He was very,  _very_  friendly.”

“ _Pidge_ ,” Keith warns.

Shiro examines his borrowed green and purple shirt. He assumed Keith’s ex was Galra considering his name and size, but Shiro doesn’t know much about Alteans given that he’s only met three of them.

“Different ex,” Pidge says, reading Shiro’s mind. “Those are Zrek’s clothes. Nice guy, but colorblind. And patternblind. The ex I’m talking about is Farallon, who had a perfectly functioning set of eyes—except for the finding Keith hot part.”

Keith scowls. “You know I can hear you, right?”

“Does it look like I care? Anyway, long story short—because Keith is being a baby about it—but Farallon really,  _really_  wanted to have a threesome. He kept asking around the Garrison.” Pidge turns to Keith. “Didn’t James say yes?” she asks sweetly.

The word  _threesome_  coming out of Pidge’s mouth should be scaring but Shiro’s brain skips that step and jumps to images of Keith with Griffin and a faceless Altean man. Keith’s pretty lips stretch around Griffin’s cock as the faceless man holds his hips and up and takes him from behind. Keith pants, his expression contorting in pleasure as Griffin and the faceless man push inside of him at the same time.

Shiro misses a step.

“But  _I_  didn’t say yes,” Keith snaps indignantly. “And don’t leave out the part where I dumped Farallon’s for that shit.”

“At least Farallon didn’t ask Shiro,” Pidge muses. “That would have been Awkward, with capital  _A_.”

Shiro’s fantasies change.

Keith’s eyelashes flutter as Shiro leans in to kiss him. The dim room gives everything a soft edge. Keith’s lips are pliant, moving as Shiro directs. He parts them clumsily for Shiro’s tongue, his inexperience obvious and endearing.

Keith breaks the kiss to stare up at Shiro in wonder. His hair curls around his shoulders; there’s no scar on his face. This isn’t Shiro’s fantasy—it’s the clone’s. This is the Keith that saved him, the Keith that stayed at his bedside for hours. The clone wanted to pay his reverence to Keith in the most carnal way. Wanted to kiss him until he was gasping for air. Wanted to pull him into bed. Wanted to undress him with care and explore every inch of his body. Wanted to learn the ways he liked to be touched.

Shiro walks into a lamppost.

“I’m okay.” Shiro runs his tongue over his teeth, making sure he hasn’t knocked them out in his carelessness. “Can we maybe change the subject?” His voice lifts higher with the question.

The wolf disappears in a flash of light, a welcome distraction as it stops Keith and Pidge from staring at him. Shiro tries to empty his mind and compose himself. When that doesn’t work he starts running through a list of things that are guaranteed to stop the rush of heat he’s feeling: Adam’s grandmother’s perfume making him gag at Thanksgiving, a Garrison nurse prodding him with needles, Coran screeching in his underwear—

The last one isn’t his imagination.

“Bad Kosmo,” Pidge admonishes flatly.

Coran stops screaming. The wolf affectionately licks his face.

“Pardon my screaming, I wasn’t expecting you to get here so early.” Coran has significantly more chest hair than Shiro would have guessed. Bright orange chest hair. “Though I guess there was no agreed upon time. How have you been faring, Number Five? Solved your tricky signal problems? Ah, Number Four, always good to see you—I’m sorry, Number  _Three_. And Number One. It’s been too long since the reunion. Married life has made you quite the homebody. Not that I’m one to talk!”

“Uh.” The word  _married_  is as shocking to hear as it was when Pidge mentioned it on Daibazaal.

“This isn’t our Shiro,” Pidge says.

Coran frowns at Shiro’s floating arm. “A clone survived?”

“He’s not a clone,” Keith says. “He’s a Shiro from the past, brought here by Allura. We’re not exactly sure how yet.”

Coran pulls out a tobacco pipe from a pocket and chews on it thoughtfully. Shiro has never seen pockets on underwear before. It’s perverse. “Time travel, you say?”

“Yup,” Pidge confirms.

Coran takes a moment to digest this. He doesn’t offer any thoughts on the subject, claiming the impossibility or possibility of it, but instead points his pipe to the sky. “Better get to the castle then,” he says.

“You heard him,” Keith says, nudging Shiro’s side with an elbow.

A gigantic statue of Allura comes into view as they keep walking, looming over the town and castle. Like everything else in the town the statue is devoid of color, leaving Allura and her paladin uniform a bleached out white. She stands tall and proud, looking to the horizon—the pose of a war hero, a soldier, a leader. It’s strange seeing her like this—forever preserved in armor and staring at Altea’s skies—when not that long ago she ran into Shiro on her way to working with Commander Holt on Atlas’s wormhole technology. During the quick encounter, she was her normal cheerful self, smiling and asking how his day was going. The Allura in this statue is so far removed from that woman that she looks like a stranger to him.

Coran and the wolf march pass Allura’s statue and head for the castle’s doors. Keith and Pidge fall behind, glancing up at Allura with determination.

Keith’s hands tighten around his duffle bag’s straps.“We’re going to save her.”

“That’s right.” Pidge pushes the goggles off of her face to look at Allura with her own eyes.

Shiro believes them.

Entering the castle is like walking onto the set of a Sherlock Holmes adaptation—albeit one with significantly more cyan and portraits of elves. Coran has added cozy armchairs, cramped bookshelves, fake fireplaces, mock wood paneling—but just like the town around the castle the place still feels far from rustic. He can’t fully hide the sleek, white Altean aesthetic. The changes are superficial, surface level attempts at decoration.

“Sorry about the mess,” Coran apologizes unnecessarily. The castle may be cramped but it’s neatly organized, with not a speck of dust in sight. “I've left your rooms alone, no need to worry about that.”

“Oh,” Keith says and it’s not a happy sound. “Shiro can’t use his room. Shiro—the other Shiro—will need it. I would say they could share, but if the other Shiro’s coming he’s probably bringing company.”

“Shiro can just stay in your room,” Pidge says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Shiro is certain his look of panic matches Keith’s.

“What about Allura’s ro—”

Shiro and Coran interrupt Keith at the same time. “No.” Just knowing Coran keeps a room for Allura in the castle breaks something in him.

Coran clears his throat. “The Paladin’s beds are spacious. I’m sure Number One would prefer your company over the other options. Oh dear, this is going to get confusing when there are two Numbers Ones. We need to differentiate you somehow. Number One Alpha and Number One Beta? Number One Prime and Number One—what’s the counterpart to prime? Maybe Captain Shirogane and Admiral Shirogane? Or—”

“—If you need to differentiate, Past Shiro and Future Shiro are fine, at least to me,” Shiro offers helpfully.

“Splendid, Past Shiro! If you agree then certainly Future Shiro will agree too.”

“I'm not sure it works that way,” Shiro says. It’s impossible to say how much his future self has changed. The bits and pieces he knows so far about himself paint a confusing picture.

“We dine in twenty,” Coran says; he looks down at his nearly naked state. “We dine in forty.” Coran waves his hands and darts down a corridor to hopefully find the rest of his clothes.

“Well this is already a hot mess and Lance isn’t even here yet.” Pidge grabs onto the wolf’s fur. “Let’s get you something to eat Kosmo buddy.” The two of them disappear in a flash of light leaving Shiro alone with Keith in a hallway full of portraits of red mustached men and women that are either Coran’s relatives or commissions of his Monsters & Mana OCs. Either option is equally believable.

Keith stares wistfully at the empty spot where the wolf and Pidge were just standing. “I guess we’ll take the long way.”

 

⼮

Coran has always been a man of peculiar tastes, but it seems since Allura’s death those tastes have taken a new turn. During dinner, he plays a Spanish dub of  _The Sound of Music_ and sings along—either having picked up the language or having watched it so many times he can mimic the sounds—while a pair of Altean robots wearing light-up mouse ears serve them their food from take-out containers. Coran claims a few other people live in the castle (Shiro doesn’t recognize any of their names) but none of them are home at the moment. Shiro gets the feeling it’s been that way for a while. Coran exudes a loneliness Shiro knows well.

After dinner, Coran attempts to entertain them with a game of Monsters & Mana. All of their characters die—including the talking wolf companion of Keith’s half-elf ranger—after they walk into a trap set up by Coran’s big bad (a bard definitely based on Maria von Trapp). The death of even the wolf sours the group’s mood to play again. Coran proposes a movie marathon at which point Pidge vanishes almost instantly, without even using the wolf to cheat. Keith and Shiro express their apologies but really, it’s getting late. Nevermind that Shiro’s internal clock says it’s early afternoon. The sun is down on Altea and that’s what they’re going to use as a reference.

“I know Coran can be a bit much,” Keith says as they walk to his room. As they get closer, Coran’s decorations fizzle out to a few unkempt potted plants and posters of baby animals Shiro guesses are native to Altea. “But Allura’s death hit him hard. Combined with this planet being–well, we talked about it a bit earlier. The Alteans of the colony aren’t like the Alteans of the past. They’ve never been free. Some of them are enjoying that newfound freedom while others have turned distrustful of outsiders. But it’s not as if Alteans trust themselves either. Quite the opposite—no one can seem to stay in power. They’ve had fourteen prime ministers in five years and the current one, Merla—she used to live with Coran—is unlikely to last much longer with the way things are going.”

“What about Coran?” He seems like the obvious choice to lead the Alteans. He has experience as a royal advisor, remembers the old Altea, and worked closely with Voltron and the Coalition.

“Coran isn’t interested in leading, which I get. I was asked to lead the Galra and turned the position down. The difference is my mom and the rest of the Blades have stepped up to build a functioning government. So far, no one’s done that on Altea.”

Keith’s room in the new castle looks nothing like his room on the old one. The bed is smaller, with a nearly hexagonal shaped window on the wall it’s shoved against. A table at the side of the bed is the only other piece of furniture unless Keith’s duffle bag counts as a footstool.

Shiro and Keith stand awkwardly as they both seem to realize there’s nowhere to go in the room but the bed. There isn’t even a chair for one of them to retreat to. Shiro wonders if it’s too late to take Coran up on his movie marathon.

“I guess we can get ready to sleep,” Keith says, not moving.

“Yeah,” Shiro agrees, also frozen.

Stupidly, they start changing into pajamas in Keith’s room as if everything is normal. It’s not. Keith takes off his shirt and Shiro is able to fully see the tattoo on Keith’s back. He caught a glimpse of it on Daibazaal when Keith was in a tank top. Shiro didn’t realize it then that it spanned the entirety of his back—even shirtless there are parts of it Shiro can’t see as it disappears into the waistline of his pants. The tattoo is inked black and red, with intricate designs and words that must be written in the Galra’s version of cursive. As Shiro takes it in he sees a comet falling over a desert landscape, the red and black lion flying against a backdrop of stars, and a row of striped carnations. He could stare at it for hours and not feel bored, but Keith doesn’t give him the chance to try. He covers his back with a black tank top and starts taking off his pants.

Not wanting to be caught staring when Keith is so politely turned around, Shiro races to dress and destroys a row of buttons on an orange and blue nightshirt. He inspects the damage and decides the shirt doesn’t need to close around the chest. His pecs can hang out, it’s fine.

“Not going to button up?” Keith gestures at his own chest in demonstration. Shiro does his best to not stare at how Keith’s tank top clings to his chest.

“Too constricting,” Shiro lies. Zrek’s clothing fits loosely on him.

Shiro takes his sweet time going through the rest of the motions needed for bed but he can't delay the inevitable. Eventually, he finds himself cramped against the wall, suctioning himself to it in an attempt to avoid even the slightest accidental touch. When Keith turns off the lights he’s still not safe; there's too much light coming in through the window and too many strips of glowing cyan that make it easy to see Keith in full detail. Shiro can see in perfect clarity where the skin on his face is marred from the scar Shiro gave him.

“I like your tattoo,” Shiro’s traitorous mouth says to fill up the silence.

“Thanks,” Keith says, his voice quiet. His long hair fans out around him, unbraided.

“Did it hurt?” Shiro asks.

“Not really. The Galra know how to make tattoos painless.”

“Good to know if I ever want a tattoo,” Shiro says lightly. Keith doesn’t respond. “Did you design it yourself?”

Keith’s hair falls around his face when he nods. He pushes it away.

What Shiro wants is to peel off Keith’s shirt to examine the tattoo in detail, but that’s not a request he can make. Technically, Keith didn’t show him the tattoo which means he now knows Shiro was peeping, which is great.

Shiro wonders who Keith  _has_  shared his tattoo with. He was shirtless in some of the beach pictures. The person who took those photos must have seen it—lucky them. Shiro swallows down his bitterness. He wonders if his future self has seen Keith’s tattoo. Probably not. He probably doesn’t even know Keith has one. That’s sort of weird to think about. Shiro knows something his future self doesn’t.

“What’s my husband like?” Shiro asks the question before his courage can leave him. Since the moment Pidge mentioned he was married the _to who?_   has been floating in the back of his mind. The name Curtis is unfamiliar. He doesn’t know anyone by it.

Keith’s silence stretches on for long enough that Shiro thinks he’s fallen asleep.

“He’s in the Garrison,” Keith says finally. “You already know him. He’s part of Atlas’s crew. Or will be—I can’t remember. You know, Curtis—the communications officer.”

Shiro doesn’t know. “Sorry, the name doesn’t ring any bells. Maybe I’d know him if I saw him.”

“Maybe,” Keith says.

“It’s just—I don’t know anything about this guy except for the fact that we’re married. And that he works for the Garrison.”

“He likes dogs,” Keith offers.

“Everybody likes dogs,” Shiro says. “That’s not a personality trait.”

“Why do you even care?” Keith asks. “You don’t need to know him yet. You’ll get to know him when you start dating.”

The problem with that is Shiro can’t even imagine  _why_  they start dating. Did Curtis ask him out? Did he ask Curtis out? Was it spur of the moment or a flirtation that escalated? “I just—what if I return to the past and screw everything up? What if we only get together in this specific universe and by coming here it’s already changed too much? You know how Slav is always talking about—well you know. What if I wear the wrong shirt to our first date and that’s it. No marriage for me.”

Keith shifts to his back and turns his head to Shiro. His hair is a deep black against the bed’s white sheets as it spreads out around him. All he needs are the pointed ears and he would look exactly like the elven prince from a TV show Shiro’s tween self used to watch a little too intensely.

“Don’t worry,” he says, and there’s a glint to his eyes that Shiro hasn’t seen before, “if it’s not him, it will just be some other guy. You won’t know the difference.”

Shiro feels like he’s been stabbed.

“I guess you’re right,” Shiro says when he’s recovered enough to breathe again. “What about you?” he asks casually. “Are you seeing anyone right now?”

His words have their intended effect. Keith’s face crumbles and he turns his head away to stare at the ceiling. “No,” he says, his voice gruff, like there’s something in his throat.

“Don’t you want to get married someday?” Blood pumps in Shiro’s ears, making him speak with cruelty.

Keith clasps his hands together on his stomach, holding himself back from striking Shiro. “It’s not going to happen.”

“That’s not what I asked.” Shiro wants a reason for why his future self pulls away and the anger coursing through him makes him feel like he’s found it. “I didn’t think I would get married after breaking up with Adam, you know. There was no time to build up a relationship. But it’s still something I wanted, even if it  _wasn’t_  going to happen.”

Keith’s jaw clenches at Shiro’s emphasis. “I’m not like you, looking to get married just for the sake of it. I want to marry the right person.”

“And who’s that exactly?” Shiro snaps.

Keith laughs. It’s an ugly, heartbroken thing that wakes Shiro up from his vindictive haze. “You just don’t get it. I already found him. It’s not mutual. Not everyone gets a neat happy ending like you.” Keith sits up and moves to the edge of the bed, his back to Shiro. “I’m going to take a shower.”

Shock floods Shiro. He scrambles to sit up. “Keith—”

“Don’t—just don’t.”

“I’m sorry.” Shiro can’t let it go. Why did he say those things? Why did he let his anger get the better of him? “I didn’t know, I—“

“I said  _don’t_.”

Keith doesn’t look back as he leaves the room. Lights from the hallway flood the bedroom, blinding Shiro and forcing him to look away.

Shiro’s heart pounds in his chest like he’s been running.

Keith is in love with someone that doesn’t love him back. He doesn’t provide that information to hurt Shiro, he snaps it out of pain, wanting Shiro to stop digging at his raw wounds. But Shiro is hurt from the knowledge.

He wants to deny. Wants to play it off. But the truth sits in front of him and isn’t going to leave. The reason why Keith’s revelation hurts so much is because Shiro—Shiro has feelings for him.

Ha,  _feelings_. He knew that already. The clone knew that.

He’s still trying to hold back acknowledging reality. For what? The only person in Shiro’s head is himself—no clone, no Haggar.

He lets himself think it finally.

_I’m in love with Keith._

That wasn’t so bad, right? The ground hasn’t swallowed him whole. The universe didn’t collapse.

Admitting it is freeing. Shiro’s heart stops feeling like it’s going to jump out of his chest.

Being in love with Keith is terrifying. Keith isn’t some nobody he meets at twenty-six. Keith is the kid Shiro has known for—five, six years? That can’t be right. He feels like he’s known Keith for much longer than that, but that isn’t the case. It just feels that way because Keith’s friendship is the most intense relationship he’s ever had—including all of his romantic relationships. Maybe it was the disease holding Shiro back from forming strong bonds with other people, or maybe it was all the life and death situations he’s shared with Keith that made their bond special.

No—that wasn’t it. The intensity of the relationship was there from the start. Shiro can’t blame Voltron for it. And if his disease held him back with others—why didn’t that happen with Keith?

What made Keith so special? When they met Keith was fourteen and he was twenty-one. How did a friendship with Keith even happen? It wasn’t like Shiro was totally oblivious to the gap between them. He remembers Adam’s looks of disapproval whenever Keith would call him Shiro. Adam was the older one in their relationship, forcing Shiro to use his last name or title for the first few years of their friendship. Decorum was important to him.

Shiro, as it turns out, doesn’t give a shit about these things. Not when Keith is involved. He really doesn’t forget Keith’s age. He befriends him knowing realistically Keith will grow out of their friendship. Except he doesn’t. Shiro’s friendship is something even this version of Keith clings onto. It’s  _Shiro_  that outgrows their friendship, wanting more than Keith can give him.

Shiro can’t pinpoint the exact moment his feelings for Keith change from friendship to love. Maybe it’s the first time Keith pilots Black, saving Shiro’s life in the process like a knight from a fairytale. Maybe it’s when Shiro wakes up in Keith’s rundown shack and sees Keith sleeping in a chair next to him, his hand holding onto Shiro’s tightly, like he’s afraid Shiro might disappear again. Maybe it’s after Shiro dies and he has to watch Keith searching for him, unable to tell him to give up.

Shiro remembers someone telling him that love is a friendship caught on fire. His feelings for Keith feel exactly like that: a blazing inferno tearing through familiar landscapes. No wonder it’s so terrifying to accept his feelings. His future self must have been consumed by the flame and pulled back. That’s understandable but he’s not going to be like that. He has an advantage his future self didn’t: Shiro knows he’s going to get over his feelings. He’s going to fall in love with someone that isn’t Keith and marry him. The pain he feels right now is temporary.

_Not everyone gets a neat happy ending like you._

Keith is right. Not everyone gets lucky like he will. That’s why he’s here—to give everyone a happy ending, not just himself. Saving Allura is the priority for that happiness but bringing her back isn’t going to save Keith’s heart. Keith needs him too. Somehow, Shiro thinks Allura knows that. She brought him to this time and place for a reason, and he doesn’t think it’s a coincidence she dumped him in Keith’s apartment.

Shiro doesn’t know how he’s going to heal Keith’s heart but he knows as long as he’s here he’s going to try.

 

⼮

When Shiro wakes up there’s space on both sides of him. The bed is roomy when there’s only one person in it—no more clinging to the wall is necessary.

Sunlight filters in from the window. His internal clock has adjusted. It looks like morning and it feels like morning. Shiro assumes Keith has already left but when he turns away from the window he finds out that’s not the case.

Rather than sleeping in the same bed as Shiro, Keith has dug up a chair to sleep on instead. The chair is roomy and cushioned, a decent size for Keith’s frame, but it’s still a chair. Keith is sleeping halfway slumped in a position that’s going to hurt his neck. A blanket covers him as he dozes, only his sleeping face peeking out. He looks peaceful, not at all like the last time Shiro saw him. His mouth is slightly opened, revealing tiny fangs.

Shiro wants to give him the bed but he doesn’t know how to do that without waking Keith up and once woken he doubts Keith will fall back asleep. Keith deserves to rest after last night.

Shiro stretches, tries to raise his arms above his head before remembering his prosthetic arm is off. He’s still getting used to the quirks of an unattached arm. Shiro powers it on with his thoughts and is hit with the unexpected feeling of something embracing it. He flexes his fingers, brushing warm skin and soft cotton. Keith’s blanket stirs. Shiro tries to turn his wrist but the pair of arms around it tighten their hold. Keith makes a small noise of protest.

If Shiro was a good, unselfish person he would turn his arm back off. If Keith wants to hijack it as a pillow to cling to in his sleep that’s fine but Shiro really doesn’t need to feel it.

Shiro leaves his arm on.

He has no idea how much time passes—if time is passing at all. He might just be stuck in some kind of purgatory where his high tech prosthetic arm and all of its incredible sensors are being cuddled by the man he’s just accepted he’s in love with. Did Keith grab his arm accidentally or did Shiro’s stupid brain power on his arm while he slept and make its way into Keith’s arms like a stray dog looking for a home? He hopes it was Keith’s doing, but he doubts it. The arm has a mind of its own. No, it’s not Shiro’s subconscious. That’s impossible.

Keith stirs awake, blinking slowly and still clutching Shiro’s arm. He stretches out his neck and sees Shiro.

“Shiro? What are you doing here?” His voice is soft and quiet, unbelieving but hopeful—he’s still half asleep, not remembering which Shiro he’s looking at.

Shiro clears his throat. “It’s me—uh, the past Shiro.”

Keith’s eyes widen; he turns away. “R-right.”

“Also,” Shiro says while flexing his prosthetic arm, “I think my hand wandered away while I was sleeping.”

Keith shudders at the movement. “Shit—I’m sorry.” He lets go of Shiro’s arm, forcing Shiro to bring it back to where it’s supposed to be.

“No—it’s my fault. I’m still not used to this thing.” Keith is back to avoiding looking at him. They’re not going to get anywhere like this. “I’m sorry for last night. No—don’t tell me I don’t need to apologize. I was upset and took it on you. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Shiro.” There’s no one in the universe that says his name quite like Keith does. “I was being—I shouldn’t have acted like your husband is interchangeable. He’s not. I just don’t know him. I’m sure you can ask future Shiro about him when he gets here. Or—well, he might come with you. Him.”

Shiro isn’t sure Keith is all that wrong about his husband. What he feels for Keith is unique in its intensity. He doubts he feels that way about his husband. He didn’t feel that way about Adam. But that’s okay—not every romance has to feel like his heart is on fire. An easy romance can still be meaningful.

Arm returned, Shiro takes a shower and gets ready for the day. The end of the shower features his imagination running wild with thoughts of Keith, years of denial finally being allowed to let loose. If he’s supposed to feel bad about being attracted to Keith when his future self is married, he doesn’t. He can’t exactly jack off to the thought of a marriage certificate.

When he returns to the bedroom Keith is dressed and brushing out tangles from his hair. His hair absurdly long; he probably hasn’t cut it the entire six years.

“Can I braid it for you?” Shiro asks.

Keith tenses and stops brushing his hair. Shiro ignores his tension, staying calmly resolute. In a way, this future Keith reminds him of how Keith was when they first met, his moods and tempers changing suddenly but not without reason. This Keith has a history Shiro isn’t privy to, just like before. Shiro can never learn everything about Keith but he  _can_  be patient with him and unflinching when Keith pushes him away. It was a mistake last night to push Keith back. He can that with  _his_  Keith, but he can’t do that with this one. This Keith carries hurts Shiro doesn’t know.

“You don’t have to do that,” Keith says.

“I want to,” Shiro says truthfully.

Keith hesitates. If he says no, Shiro will respect that. “Do you even know how to braid hair?”

In middle school, Shiro grew out his hair in an attempt to be cool. It was a popular look at the time. The attempt failed spectacularly—a cool thirteen-year-old is an oxymoron—but he  _did_  learn how to braid hair.

“I can do a lot of things you’d never expect,” Shiro says mysteriously.

Keith doesn’t look like he believes him but he hands Shiro a brush and a hair tie anyway.

Shiro sections Keith’s hair into three pieces and tries not to freak out about its softness. Keith’s hair is a glossy black that looks like it should be silky but isn’t. His hair is soft and fluffy like the fur behind Shiro’s old cat Meowstopheles’s ears. The last braid Shiro made was nearly fifteen years ago. Remembering what to do takes a bit of trial and error. He definitely can’t do as good a job as Keith can but he hopes Keith won’t mind.

Keith closes his eyes as Shiro braids his hair, furthering Shiro’s impression that Keith is just a human version of Meowstopheles. Shiro wouldn’t find it surprising if Keith starts to purr.

“Done,” Shiro says, stepping back to give Keith space. “It’s not the best but it has character.”

Loose and messy is what it is, but Shiro is going to pretend like that’s on purpose.

“Character?”

“Yes, it’s very, uh, warrior king.” Like Keith just stepped off of the battlefield. Like, really  _really_  just. The battle ended only moments ago. Keith was sweating, running in circles, slicing down enemies.

Shiro’s dick appreciates the image. Which is bullshit. He just spent an inordinate amount of time working off all of his excess lust for Keith. How was it already overfilling?

“Hmm,” Keith offers.

The room doesn’t have a mirror so Keith makes do by using his communicator’s camera. He bursts out laughing when he sees the braid Shiro made. “This is awful. This is the worst thing anyone has ever done to my hair and I’m including the time Krolia cut my hair on the space whale.” There are tears in his eyes; his communicator shakes in his hands.

“Hey,” Shiro says weakly. “I can fix it. I kind of forgot how to braid hair, but it came back to me in the end.”

“No way. Don’t you dare try fixing it. You’re right. It has character.” He grins up at Shiro. He’s way too happy about Shiro’s disaster braiding attempt.

Shiro turns red in embarrassment but it’s not because of Keith laughing at his shitty braid. The embarrassment is from how pleased Shiro is that Keith isn’t going to redo it.

The braid is a mess; Shiro fumbled it thoroughly. By all rights, Keith should replace it. He doesn’t and that makes Shiro deliriously happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can't interrupt this Very Serious Fic with keith purring but let me tell you... he purrs (in my mind)


	5. simultaneity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ୧༼✿ ͡◕ д ◕͡ ༽୨

Three weeks before the wedding Keith drags Lance against his will to a café not far from the farm. Last month it was Pidge’s turn to check in on him and the month before that it was Hunk’s. Next up in the rotation they’ve clearly set up behind his back (not that he blames them—he would do the same in their place) should be Shiro right after he returns from his honeymoon.

Pidge takes Lance to an aquarium dedicated to alien marine life in Australia, Hunk invites him on a food tour of Nepal, and Keith—Keith makes him go on a two hour walk around the Cuban countryside, stopping to pet at least fifty cats, before choosing to enter a café on a whim. A different Lance would have felt insulted by Keith’s lack of effort. No space adventure, no fancy foods, no alien life? Clearly, Keith is a jerk that doesn’t care about him. This Lance is wiser. He’s grateful he isn’t being forced to pretend to be happy to soothe Keith’s conscience. He doesn’t have to put a smile on his face as his heart shatters watching happy young families at the aquarium or pretend he can appreciate the food he eats when all of it tastes like a bland nothingness. Pidge and Hunk care about him but they also don’t  _get_  it. They can’t put themselves in Lance’s shoes.

“How did you do it when Shiro died?” The weather is beautiful, the start of spring. The café’s patio lets them appreciate it.

Keith takes a sip of his coffee. “Which time?” he asks casually, like the memory of it is nothing. Lance knows it isn’t. If Allura suddenly appeared in the middle of the café it wouldn’t erase his memory of losing her.

“Either. Both.”

“You were there after Zarkon killed Shiro. And you saw how I lived after the Kerberos mission. Not really sure I can offer any healthy coping techniques.”

Lance traces the rim of his coffee cup. “I’m not looking for healthy, I’m looking for  _anything_. How did you, I don’t know, get up every morning to work on your crazy conspiracy board instead of staying in bed and staring up at the ceiling? Because that’s where I’m at right now. All I’ve got going in my life is volunteer work and Shiro’s wedding.”

“What about the farm?”

Lance waves his hands dismissively. “The farm basically runs without me. Almost everything is automated and my family helps with the rest.”

“You’re downplaying things. Helping with Shiro’s wedding is a big deal. Your volunteer work takes you around the universe. And even the farm has you figuring out how to make alien plants grow on Earth.”

Lance shrugs. “I guess. You know my aunt tried to set me up with someone the other week. It was a complete disaster. I feel like everyone is just tired of me moping around. They want me to get over Allura but I just can’t, you know? Sometimes I’ll wake up and think about her and forget that she’s gone. When I remember it’s like losing her all over again.”

Keith works his way through the pastries they ordered, nearly inhaling two of them before responding. “There wasn’t a single day I didn’t think about Shiro. I don’t have any advice that can make you stop missing Allura. Maybe you don’t ever get over her. So what? If you don’t want to be with someone else, don’t force yourself. Who gives a shit if other people think you should be moving on—they don’t get it.”

Keith tears through another pastry, oblivious to how much his words have impacted Lance. Or maybe he’s just pretending to be, politely looking away while Lance composes himself.

Lance clears his throat, pushing back the gratefulness mixed with grief threatening to overwhelm him. “That’s shockingly wise coming from you. Who are you and what have you done with Keith?” Keith glares at him as he sips his coffee. It’s such a petty Keith action that it makes Lance smile, just a little bit. “On a lighter note, you’re still coming to the bachelor party, right?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Keith asks evasively.

Lance grabs one of the few pastries Keith hasn’t attacked yet. “I don’t know, maybe because you’ve been super weird about the entire wedding.”

“Weddings aren’t my thing. That’s why I didn’t want to be Shiro’s best man. Why are you asking about the bachelor party?” He drinks his coffee, eyeing Lance suspiciously.

Lance pulls out his communicator and opens up a website for Keith to look at. “I’m trying to figure out what strippers to hire for Shiro but I don’t know his type.”

Coffee spills all over the table as Keith drops his cup and starts to choke. A hot minute passes before Keith’s wheezing can calm down enough for him to rasp out a response. “What? Why would you ask me that?”

“Well, it’s supposed to be a  _surprise_  so I can’t exactly ask Shiro. And no, I’m not going to ask Curtis. He’s not supposed to know what happens at Shiro’s bachelor party. That leaves you, his best friend.”

Keith cleans up the table from his spilled coffee. “I don’t know. Big. Tall. Buff. That’s his type, I guess.”

Lance frowns. Curtis is tall but buff he is not. Average, more like it. “How buff are we talking here? Because this is what I have to work with.” He shows Keith the website he’s using to hire strippers. “Do any of these dudes look like they’re his type?”

Keith frowns as Lance scrolls through a plethora of men of all shapes and sizes, most human but some not. “No, no, no—maybe? No, no, no, no—”

Lance freezes when he reaches a listing for a smirking dark haired man. Keith says no to him immediately, but Lance ignores him. There’s something about the man. Lance opens the man’s photo section to see if there are any other pictures of him. The photo gallery is like seeing double. “Hey, this dude kind of looks like you.”

“What? No, he doesn’t.”

The man has long, jet black hair framing delicate features in waves but as pretty as his face is Keith’s face—as disturbing as it is to admit—is prettier. The poor stripper doesn’t stand a chance at beating Keith in that department—no human man does given Keith’s resemblance to his alien mother. “Look, he even has your scar.”

“That’s a birthmark,” Keith says dryly.

“Whatever, same difference. I’m totally hiring him.” He might not be Shiro’s type but seeing everyone’s reaction to a Keith that’s a stripper will be priceless. Lance will hire a few of the strippers Keith suggested for good measure, just to make sure Shiro still has a good time.

“You can’t be serious.”

“I would never joke about hiring a stripper that looks like your clone.” Lance sends a request to the man with the dates and times he needs.

“He’s not Shiro’s type.”

“So? Not everything has to be about Shiro.”

“It’s  _Shiro’s_  bachelor party.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m hiring a few of the beefcakes too.” Lance makes the rest of his requests. “Man, I can’t get over how much that stripper looks like you. Do you think he’s hot?”

“What?” Keith stares at him in disbelief.

“I’m not really into dudes but I think I would make out with myself. I’m pretty hot. What about you? Not like, ‘would you make out with me?’ but would you make out with yourself?”

“That’s disturbing. You’re disturbed.”

Lance puts his communicator away. “If the clone and Shiro had their own separate bodies Shiro could have genuinely made out with himself. Wow. Imagine that, two Shiros making out. It’s a little weird actually.”

Keith crushes a pastry. “Can we change the subject?”

Lance rolls his eyes but obliges. They chat about the wedding and what Keith has been up to lately (mostly Blade work as they transition from a spy network into something more dedicated to rebuilding instead of tearing down). Lance tells Keith about a museum they’re planning to build in honor of Allura on Altea and Keith promises to attend the opening.

When they part Lance feels a little less miserable than usual. He doesn’t know how long his almost good mood will last, but he’ll take it.

 

⼮

Keith doesn’t show up to the bachelor party. Lance messages and calls him but Keith doesn’t respond to the messages and Lance’s calls go straight to voicemail. An hour in, Lance writes Keith off as a lost cause.

While Keith might be missing in action, Keith’s lookalike arrives promptly at the paid for time. He looks less like Keith in person. His expressions are all off; he smiles coquettishly and blows a kiss at Lance when Lance is showing him where to go. He’s a little thinner and his voice is a little higher but Shiro is smashed out of his mind when he spots him and having spent the better part of the night asking where Keith was it’s not a surprise when Shiro thinks the man  _is_  Keith.

“Keith! You made it.” Shiro pushes past a server, nearly tripping over himself to reach the fake Keith.

The man, a born actor, doesn’t correct the name. “That’s right, sweetheart. I’m here  _just_  for you.”  _This him?_  he mouths at Lance. Lance nods an affirmative.

“Really? You mean it?”

Fake Keith looks up at Shiro from eyelashes too long to be real and nods.

“We shouldn’t tell Curtis though,” Shiro warns.

Lance frowns. Curtis is well aware of Shiro’s bachelor party and is having one of his own. His friends are throwing it at some winery which frankly sounds snobbish and boring but Lance admittedly knows very little about Curtis’s interests. Maybe wine gets him as hammered as whatever Shiro’s been drinking and he’s currently having the time of his life.

Fake Keith glances at Lance at the mention of Curtis, looking for clarification.

“That’s the fiancé.”

“Gotcha,” he says before turning back to Shiro who is looking at him with hearts in his eyes. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. We’ll keep everything between us. I won’t tell a soul.”

“Okay,” Shiro says, gulping.

Fake Keith smiles and starts unbuttoning his shirt in time to the music. In the chaos of the party, no one sees them—which is ironic given the reason Lance hired a Keith lookalike was to see people’s reactions. The last thing he expected was for Shiro to show any interest in him. He’s ignored the other strippers, asking not about Curtis but about  _Keith_. Lance thought it was because Shiro knew his fiancé was at his own bachelor party, out of reach, but now he doubts Shiro has any idea where Curtis is and the reason he’s not asking about him is—

Lance shakes his head. He won’t finish the thought. He regrets hiring a Keith lookalike. Shiro is riveted watching him, almost unblinking. What fake Keith lacks in looks he makes up for in charisma; he manages to get even Lance to stare as he rips off his pants.

Unfortunately or fortunately, his looks are too off from Keith’s up close. When he straddles over Shiro for a lap dance his hold over him breaks.

“You’re not Keith,” Shiro says, frowning in confusion.

“I’m whoever you want me to be, sweetheart.” He grabs Shiro’s bicep—a mistake. Shiro pushes him off, not roughly but enough to get the point across.

“I want Keith. Where’s Keith?” Shiro whines.

The man scowls and turns to Lance. “Didn’t you say his fiancé was named Curtis?”

“Keith’s a friend of ours,” Lance says, his tongue heavy in his mouth.

“Right. A  _friend_.”

Lance wants to tell the man that whatever he’s implying is wrong but everything about tonight is throwing him off. Does Keith know—is that why he’s not here?

“They’re friends,” Lance says weakly.

The man is unbelieving; he looks at Shiro with pity.

Lance steers Shiro away and spends the rest of the night trying to make Shiro forget Keith exists.

 

⼮

“Form Voltron!”

A painfully high voice wakes Lance up. It’s Pidge’s voice actor from the cartoon version of their lives. Pidge made it her message tone. Lance hates it but he can’t figure out how to change it—Pidge has done some kind of hacking voodoo to his communicator, overriding his settings to torture him.

Lance reads Pidge’s message and sighs. He can’t believe the nerve of her, demanding that he fly across the universe without an explanation. It’s like she thinks he has nothing going on in his life except making sure his farm doesn’t burn down. What if he had plans?  _What then, Pidge?_  It could happen.

Lance drags himself out of bed and starts packing.

Shiro video calls him not long after Pidge’s message wakes him up, letting Lance know he isn’t special—Pidge sent Shiro a message too, just as cryptic as Lance’s. A pattern established, Lance guesses Hunk and Keith also received messages from Pidge but he can’t confirm his suspicions easily as Hunk is off-planet and Keith is either on a mission or at home on Daibazaal. Communication from Earth and the rest of the universe takes time and who knows what “timezones” Hunk and Keith are in—maybe they’ve just gone to bed.

“You’re going, right?” Lance asks as he shoves his old lion slippers into his suitcase.

“Curtis has to figure things out with the Garrison.” Lance can hear Curtis getting ready in the background for work, which is interesting as unlike Lance or his husband, Shiro is fully put together on the video call—no bedhead or pajamas—giving off the impression that seven in the morning is late for him. Lance can’t relate. “We’ll leave after that. That’s why I’m calling. I wanted to see if you need a ride to Altea.”

“And be a third wheel to you and Curtis? Nah, I’ll pass. I’ll figure something out.”

Shiro frowns seriously. “You wouldn’t be a third wheel.”

Lance scoffs at his claim. “The only person that isn’t a third wheel to you and Curtis is Keith, and that’s because when Keith is around Curtis is the third wheel.”

Shiro’s frown increases; he stares at Lance like he wants to reprimand him but can’t because that would involve acknowledging Keith’s existence which is a thing he’s stopped doing. It grates on Lance’s nerves. His tolerance for people’s relationship bullshit has decreased dramatically each year since Allura’s death.

“If you change your mind, let me know soon,” Shiro says, choosing not to rise to Lance’s bait. “We’ll probably leave in the afternoon.”

Lance doesn’t plan on changing his mind. The less he has to deal with Shiro and Curtis together, the better. Lance’s feelings toward Curtis are neutral but being around him is awkward; he’s so clueless. It’s not his fault—it took Lance years to realize how many barriers Shiro has up.

Lance says goodbye to Shiro and sends out a few feelers to his Altean contacts, checking to see if any of them are heading to Altea today.

Just his luck, it’s Bellanea that answers his summons. Lance considers calling Shiro and volunteering to be his awkward third wheel after all. Unfortunately for him, Bellanea is already on her way to pick him up.

“Hiya Lance! How ya’ve been?” Lance’s translator chip has a field day with Bellanea’s accent. It can’t decide where she’s supposed to be from. Lance’s Altean isn’t that great but it’s decent enough that he doesn’t need a translator chip for it these days—except with Bellanea. Her particular brand of dialect makes his head spin.

“Hi, Bellanea.” He waves at her with his free hand; the other is holding onto his suitcase.

“’s been like ages! Come here, ya.” She holds out her arms.

Lance reluctantly steps forward and braces for impact.

Bellanea pulls him into a crushing hug. She’s not a particularly large woman, just slightly taller and wider than Romelle, but she doesn’t understand that humans are fragile beings with tiny breakable bones and soft mushy insides.

“Can’t breath,” Lance wheezes.

“Don’t be such a warnerbirch! Hugs are good for ya. Oh, guess what I found?”

“What?” Lance asks, dreading the answer.

“Well, it’s less that I  _found_  it and more that it’s something that happened. Go on, guess.”

“Uh,” Lance tries.

“Wrong!” she says, even though Lance hasn’t guessed anything. “Bodledorf released a new album.” Bellanea’s dark curls bounce as she jumps in delight.

“Oh, terrific.” Bodledorf is an Altean folk band, though that’s using the term  _band_  rather loosely. Band implies they create music. They do not. They create  _noise_.

He really should have gone with Shiro and Curtis.

“If we’re lucky we’ll get through the whole album before we reach Altea,” she says cheerfully.

“Great,” Lance says.

The flight to Altea is endless.

Sure, it’s just a matter of leaving Earth, taking a wormhole, and landing on Altea—so not much actual flight time is involved—but it  _feels_  endless. Bellanea screeches along to Bodledorf’s deep, moving lyrics the entire flight over (SOMETIMES I CAN’T SEE THE POINT OF IT ALL / WHY DOES THE SUN RISE IN THE MORNING? / MY PAIN IS A PART OF ME), giving Lance a migraine. He’s so relieved to escape her he forgets to ask her to drop him off at the castle, a mistake as it turns out Bellanea was headed to the capital, leaving him stranded in the entirely wrong hemisphere.

Navigating Altea’s limited transportation services has him cursing his entire existence as Altea isn’t a tourist-friendly destination. He considers pinging Bellanea and living through another Bodledorf song but in the end, he manages to find his way to the Castle of Lions, ready to murder Pidge.

“Took you long enough,” Pidge says when she meets him at the Castle’s entrance. He messaged her right after he arrived on Altea, three thousand quintants ago, to explain his situation. He was so young then.

“You could have picked me up from the capital, jerk.” His suitcase feels like it weighs as much as the Red Lion. It’s the rolling kind, but still. He can’t wait to get rid of it.

“Nah,” Pidge replies without hesitation.

“What’s the emergency?” he asks.

Pidge’s eyes flicker to the castle. “You'll see.”

He follows her inside, sparing a brief glance at Allura’s statue. Being on Altea makes him feel closer to her which is both a good and a bad thing. Some days he doesn’t want to leave the planet while others he can’t wait to catch the first flight off.

“Lance is here,” Pidge announces when they step in the castle’s common room, a refurbished version of the old castle’s lounge.

The first person Lance sees is Keith, which makes sense. Altea and Daibazaal are close enough that wormhole travel isn’t even needed.

“Hey,” Keith says, standing up from a couch. Time hasn’t been kind to him in the few months since Lance has last seen him.

“Oh, buddy I have some bad news for you,” Lance says, pointing to the disaster attached to Keith’s skull. “Your eyesight is starting to go. You need glasses.”

Keith scowls. “There’s nothing wrong with my eyes.”

“Is it your arm then? Did you break your hand? I’m just trying to understand what happened to your hair.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. My hair is fine. Better than fine. Shiro—” Keith bites back the rest of what he’s about to say.

Lance raises an eyebrow. “What about Shiro?”

Pidge’s communicator goes off. “That’s Hunk.” The device beeps again. “And that’s Future Shiro. Guess we’re doing this.”

“ _Future_  Shiro? What’s going on?” Pidge ignores him as she types on her communicator. Keith walks past him to join Pidge. It occurs to Lance that Coran is missing, which is glaring considering it’s his castle; Lance’s already high suspicions increase.

“Keith, they’re landing in the courtyard,” Pidge says.

“Both of them?” Keith asks.

Pidge nods. They both send furtive glances down the hallway.

“I’ll grab—you know. You deal with Hunk and… Shiro.”

Keith dashes down the hall while Pidge scrambles back to the castle’s entrance.

“Would someone please tell me what’s going on?” Lance isn’t sure which one of them he should be running after; he settles for waiting in the middle.

From the moment Pidge asked him to come to Altea, Lance has resisted speculating on the reason. If it was any other planet, he would’ve let his imagination run wild but with Altea, he’s afraid to read into things. Hope is dangerous. When the lions left, Lance got it into his head that there was a reason for it, that any moment they would fly back with Allura. He searched for them for a few months before accepting that the universe wasn’t that kind. If planning for Shiro’s wedding hadn’t distracted him, he might have spiraled into a direction he couldn’t return from. Since then he’s been careful, never letting himself believe in impossible things.

Hunk and Shiro aren’t alone. Curtis trails after Shiro, not quite keeping up with his steps. Hunk and Romelle chat with Pidge, asking her how she’s been. Lance might not see Hunk in person that much these days, but they’re still best friends; he can read the anxiety rolling off of Hunk as he subtly grills Pidge for information. Romelle supports his efforts, cheerfully verbally cornering Pidge when she tries to dodge Hunk’s questions.

From where Lance stands, he can see both sides of the hallway. Pidge, Hunk, Romelle, Shiro, and Curtis on one side and on the other—Lance has to blink furiously to make sure he’s not hallucinating.

Coran twirls his mustache, unfazed by the spectacle. Keith is nervous but steady in his steps. Shiro—Shiro is there.

Lance whips his head back to left, making sure his eyes aren’t deceiving him but no—there’s a Shiro on both sides of the hallway. It’s not the same Shiro either. The Shiro on the left is the man he talked to earlier today? yesterday?—and the Shiro on right is someone else, his hair falling over his face, his glasses gone.

The two groups see each other.

The Shiro on the left freezes. Curtis walks into him and politely starts to apologize. He cuts off abruptly when he sees the reason why the entire hallway has gone silent.

The Shiro on the right opens his mouth. “Hi,” he says awkwardly.

Keith hovers at Shiro’s side protectively, his shitty braid tucked over his shoulder on full display. Lance understands now why he was so uptight about it—there’s only one person that makes Keith so stubbornly defensive.

“Before you ask,” Pidge says, “he's not a clone. I’ve already run a bunch of tests and even pried open his arm earlier. He has the same crystal from Allura that our Shiro has.” Lance’s mind admittedly didn’t jump to  _clone_ , but that was probably foolish considering it was a thing that actually happened. No wonder the clone Shiro infiltrated Voltron so easily.

“If you’re not a clone then—an alternate reality?” Hunk asks hopefully.

“No, same reality. Just—a different time,” The extra Shiro says.

“What are you saying?” Lance asks.

“He’s from the past,” Keith answers, stepping in front of Shiro like a shield. It gives Lance a strange sense of déjà vu.

“The past?” Hunk asks incredulously.

“It’s true,” the extra Shiro says, “Allura—well, we should probably all sit down for this.”

Hearing Allura’s name is the last straw for Lance. He’s pretty sure he’s on the verge of having a mild breakdown.

_Time travel._  The universe has got to be shitting him.

Every hope Lance locked away breaks free to taunt him.

Curtis looks back and forth nervously between the two versions of his husband, neither of whom are looking at him. “I guess we know why the APP kept insisting Takashi was already on Altea.”

The younger Shiro frowns when Curtis says his given name but the older Shiro doesn’t react to his husband’s words. He’s still frozen in place, his eyes glued to the sight in front of him. It’s not at his younger self that he’s staring at but at the darker haired man next to him.

“Isn’t that just typical?” Romelle declares.

Older Shiro narrows his eyes when his younger self puts a hand on Keith’s shoulder.

Lance has to agree—it really is fucking typical.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lance, clueless in some ways, insightful in others


	6. entanglement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you ever rewrite a chapter like three times

“What if we use a bii boh bi device to cross triangulate the bii boh signal to search for bii particles?” Hunk flaps his hands in the air before pointing at a datapad screen only Pidge can see.

“Hunk, you’re a genius!” Pidge exclaims as she grabs the datapad out of his hands. “We can amplify the boh bi wave with my bi bii boh.”

Hunk and Pidge have been talking nonstop since Pidge ushered their motley group into the dining room. Earlier in the morning before Lance’s arrival, she commandeered the table for her equipment, piling Coran’s (many) belongings next to a mostly dead potted plant. When she was done destroying Coran’s decor, she tested Shiro’s arm and confirmed the authenticity of the crystal inside it.

“If we adjust for the boh bi bii effect—”

The words they use make Keith zone out in frustration; he’s unable to follow along. While his education at the Garrison was cut short, he’s learned a lot with the Blade. Keith understands science—he’s not Lance. What he doesn’t understand is science in  _English_. Unfortunately, the flurry of scientific concepts named after Earth scientists in English renders even his translator chip useless in decoding Hunk and Pidge’s conversation. He sympathizes with Krolia’s confusion when he tried to explain how Hunk used “Fraunhofer” lines to find Blue. He gets it now.

“What do you guys think?” Pidge asks, turning to the rest of them as if just remembering she isn’t alone with Hunk.

To Hunk’s right, Romelle snores with her head squished on the table while Coran nods like he’s agreeing with Pidge. Considering he’s likely in the same predicament as Keith regarding translations, his enthusiastic support doesn’t mean much. At the far end of the table, Curtis smiles politely but offers nothing while Shiro—the future Shiro—stares at the wall, as zoned out as Keith. When Keith looks to his right he sees the past Shiro isn’t faring much better; he’s staring at his hands.

The only one of them that has been truly paying attention is Lance. He taps his foot impatiently and says, “Can you explain that in a way that makes sense? The Weinberg Epsom Doppelganger effect? What does that even mean?”

Pidge stares at Lance like she’s caught him trying to push Chip out of an airlock, an expression familiar to Keith. “I’m sorry—the what effect?”

Hunk frowns, a slight wrinkle appearing on his forehead as he does. “Epsom is a salt.”

“My point exactly,” says Lance profoundly as he shakes his head.

“What point?” Pidge asks, her voice climbing dangerously high.

“That what you’re saying doesn’t make any sense.” It’s impressive how confident Lance manages to sound, as if Pidge and Hunk are at fault for his confusion and not his own scientific illiteracy.

Pidge swings her datapad around in irritation. Keith thinks there’s a good chance she’s holding herself back from throwing it at Lance’s head. “Did you sleep through all of Professor Montgomery’s classes?”

“I got a solid B-, thanks. That’s not the issue. I’m pretty sure Professor Montgomery never covered any of this stuff. Just ask Keith or Shiro if they understand what you guys are talking about.”

“Leave me out of this,” Keith says, tensing. He has no desire to be dragged into Lance’s bickering with Pidge. “I don’t even know what class Montgomery taught. I had the Grudge for all my science classes.”

“The Grudge?” Hunk asks.

“Commander Goldhofer,” both Shiros reply for him, sucking the air out of the room.

Keith’s stomach swoops.

“It’s—it’s a nickname,” Past Shiro says with the composure of a startled rabbit, “for Goldhofer. Keith came up with it because—well, you had to be there.”

Future Shiro opens and shuts his mouth silently. He doesn’t look at Keith or his past self; he hasn’t talked properly to either of them yet, or at all in Keith’s case. Pidge herded them into the dining room too quickly.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Hunk says, avoiding eye contact with Past Shiro by looking down at his datapad.

Pidge taps her foot. The quiet sound carries in the silence of the room.

Curtis clears his throat. “I’m not an expert in Heisenberg’s work,” he says helpfully, “but I do specialize in interstellar communications—”

“Wonderful,” Lance says sharply, cutting Curtis off. “You know how to operate a satellite. That’s helpful how, exactly? Are we going to send a message to Allura using a datapad? Tell me, I’d love to hear your big plans.”

The silence this time isn’t from awkwardness: it’s from shock. Even Keith flinches at Lance’s harsh tone and he doesn’t exactly have the kindest feelings towards Curtis.

“Apologize,” Shiro demands. “Now. I can’t believe—”

Curtis gently cuts him off. “I think we’re all just a little overwhelmed,” he says as he loops a hand through Shiro’s arm.

Keith snaps his neck to the side. A portrait of a young red-headed girl with pigtails and a strong mustache hangs by the door. The girl is sitting astride an animal that is neither a llama nor a stegosaurus but manages to remind Keith of both. As usual with Coran, Keith can’t tell if the portrait is fantasy or history but either way, it’s significantly more enjoyable to look at than Curtis cozying up Shiro to soothe his temper.

“I’m not overwhelmed,” Lance spits, venom in his voice.

“Lance,” Shiro says warningly.

“Don’t ‘Lance’ me.” He takes a sharp breath. “Allura is  _dead._  I’ve made my peace with it. It wasn’t easy, but I did. But now suddenly your past self decides to time travel to fix it? Great—except none of us can understand how he did it or when he’s going back. But is that even the most important thing here? Does anyone actually have a plan on how to save Allura? No? Of course not. I’m guessing none of you have even considered we might just make things worse by messing with time.”

“I did consider it, Lance,” Pidge says. “That’s why I’m trying to figure out how Shiro got to the future. It will make a difference on what options we have for saving Allura.” Pidge’s careful answer isn’t what Lance wants. He’s itching for a fight.

Keith isn’t going to let him have one. “We should take a break. We’ve been doing this all morning.”

“Sounds like a great idea,” Past Shiro says. “I could use a lunch.” He smiles in a way Keith will never be able to pull off, especially not if he’s trying. It takes the tension out of the room; Lance’s anger goes from boiling over to a light simmer.

The dining room table is unusable with Pidge’s equipment but it doesn’t matter anyway. No one wants to eat in the castle. They want to get out. They aren’t used to being together like this, not anymore. The reunions are one thing, but this, with all of them and an extra Shiro—it’s too much.

Coran and Lance are the first to disappear. There’s someone in town they want to meet, an Altean woman they’re friends with that Keith doesn’t know. Keith is pretty sure the both of them combined know every single Altean in existence. Lance might pretend he spends all of his time moping around on his farm, but the truth is he makes frequent trips to Altea, especially in recent years. His room in the castle is the most lived in after Coran’s.

Hunk wakes up Romelle, who incredibly slept through all of Lance’s theatrics, and bullies Pidge into joining them for lunch on his ship. A good thing as Keith is certain she planned on spending lunch working.

Keith fully intends to hide in the small memorial park at the center of town but his plan is destroyed when Past Shiro approaches him with his disarming smile.

“This might come as a surprise but I don’t actually have any money on me. Or a credit card. Or a GAC chip. Or whatever currency people use on Altea. Altea-bucks?”

“Everything is free on Altea, actually,” Keith lies.

“Really?” Shiro asks.

“No. They use Coalition Units like everywhere else.” Keith snorts at the look of betrayal on his face.

“I can’t believe you would lie to me. Really though, it’s okay if I tag along? I’d get it if you wanted some time alone. I bet Hunk wouldn’t mind feeding one more person.”

“I don’t mind. But you might regret picking me over Hunk. His ship is basically the space version of a food truck. Whatever you’re craving, he can probably make. My big plan is to get food from the first place I can find that’s open, which is much less impressive.”

“What a coincidence,” a cheerful voice calls out, “that’s also my plan.”

Keith turns and finds Curtis smiling warmly at them.

“We haven’t really had the chance to talk,” Curtis says, holding out a hand for Shiro to shake. His blue argyle sweater and neatly combed hair make Keith feel like a delinquent.

“You’re uh, my uh—”

“Husband?” Curtis finishes for him. Shiro’s mouth hangs open slightly as he shakes Curtis’s hand. “No need to look so stunned by my good looks,” Curtis jokes.

“What? No, that’s not—not that you don’t look good for your age. For all ages. Not in, uh, a weird way.” Shiro’s voice cracks. “That didn’t come out right, I’m sorry. Let me try again. Hi, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Ouch. Calling me old is one thing, but I draw the line at ‘nice to meet you.’ Do you hear yourself?” Curtis directs his question at Future Shiro, who is skulking around behind them. “I thought you said you remembered our first meeting.”

Future Shiro shrugs and doesn’t look at them. “I do. Maybe it hasn’t happened for him yet.”

"Let’s see, has Iverson introduced you to everyone that signed up to work on the Altas? It happens right after the battle with Sendak."

Past Shiro nods.

“Well then, we've already met. I was part of that first group signing up. I guess I didn’t leave much of an impression on you." Curtis’s smile is unwavering; he’s teasing Shiro.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Future Shiro asks.

“I have no idea what you mean,” Curtis says coyly. Keith prays for a sudden Altean rockstorm.

“Sorry, I don’t remember everyone, exactly. It was a lot of people at once,” Past Shiro says, “And I had a lot on my mind that day. Keith was in surgery.”

Curtis’s smile wavers for the first time. “Oh, I didn’t know. You never said anything.”

“I—”

“We should get going if we want to make it back in time,” Future Shiro says, interrupting his past self. They have a varga before they need to go back to the castle—Pidge was unwilling to allow more than that for lunch.

“Keith, will you lead the way?” Curtis asks. “You’re probably the one that’s been here the most.” He’s right, but only because Shiro hasn’t been here outside of their reunions. It’s not like Keith, Blade of Marmora leader and the son of one of Daibazaal’s coalition representatives is a frequent visitor to Altea.

Keith grunts and starts following the path into town.

As they walk, Curtis single-handedly keeps the conversation going. He prattles on about anything and everything—the weather, his sister’s dog, the couch he and Shiro just bought. The topics are mundane and the details are dull, but it doesn’t stop Keith’s heartache at hearing about the life Shiro has without him. It’s easier to pretend Curtis is no one to Shiro, a man he married but barely knows, than facing the truth that Shiro has spent his every day with him for almost five years. They know each other inside and out, in ways Keith wishes he could be known by someone but never will be.

He feels exhausted by the time a small restaurant pops into view. He wants to curl up in a dark room and be left alone.

“Let’s eat there,” Keith says, nodding in the direction of the restaurant.

The place is empty despite the hour but it’s optimistically designed with a wide range of booths and table sizes. Their hostess decides the best place for them is a small booth against the window.

A very small booth. For four adult men.

Keith envies her lack of spatial awareness. He can’t relate. He’s well aware of how close Past Shiro is sitting next to him and how if stretches his legs he’ll kick Future Shiro in front of him. He does his best to become one with the window, sitting as far away as he’s physically capable of from them. It’s not very far. Their waitress eyes Keith suspiciously, as if she able to tell he’s considering breaking the window to make his escape.

“How’s Zrek?” Curtis asks after their waitress is done taking their order and staring at Keith. As much as he would like to believe she’s looking at him in disapproval of his seating choices, he guesses the truth is she recognizes him and isn’t a fan. Keith hates how well-known he is. There are literally two Shiros in front of her, with their distinct hair and floating arms, and he’s the one she’s singling out? It’s ridiculous.

“We broke up,” Keith says in answer to Curtis’s question.

Future Shiro knocks over a basket of what passes for bread on Altea.

“Oh.” Curtis sounds genuinely disappointed by the news. “That’s too bad. He seemed like a good guy.”

Keith grabs a neon yellow bread roll and a tube of juniberry jelly. “He was.” He spreads the jelly more vigorously than necessary, creating tiny tears in the bread.

“I’m sorry,” Curtis says sympathetically.

“Don’t be. We weren’t right for each other.” Zrek deserves better than what Keith can give him.

“Anyone new in your life?” Curtis waggles his eyebrows playfully.

Keith is getting tired of answering that question. “No, I’m not seeing anyone right now.”

He takes a bite from his bread roll before Curtis can interrogate him further. The bright magenta juniberry jelly tastes even sweeter than it looks but the bread balances out the flavor and keeps it from being overwhelming. Unfortunately, the jelly makes a mess on his fingers; he pouts in distress as he licks them clean. He doesn’t want to be wasteful but the sweetness is nearly unbearable. He sucks on a finger and catches Future Shiro staring at him, crushing a plain bread roll in his hand.

“What? Did I get juniberry jelly on my face?” It feels bold to address him directly.

Future Shiro shakes his head.

“Juniberry jelly?” Past Shiro asks.

“Yeah, want to try some?” Keith points to the silver tube next to his plate. “You’d like it. It’s disgustingly sweet.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Keith hands Past Shiro the juniberry jelly tube. “Exactly what you think it does, Mr. Deep Fried Oreos.”

“Hey, they were deep fried  _cookie dough_  Oreos, not plain Oreos.”

Keith cringes in exaggerated disgust. “That’s supposed to be better?”

“Yes? In every way? Cookie dough improves everything, Keith.”

Keith rolls his eyes, biting back a smile. Going to the state fair with Shiro is one of his most cherished memories. They ate terrible foods, played rigged fair games, and rode every ride designed to make fairgoers scream. It was one of those days Keith fell in love with Shiro a little more than usual.

“I didn’t know you had a sweet tooth, Takashi.”

Future Shiro shrugs and takes a bite of his plain, squished bread roll. “I guess I did when I was younger.”

“But not anymore?” Keith asks.

Shiro swallows. “No, not anymore.” His glasses frame his face and draw Keith’s eyes in.

“Too bad,” Keith says. He forces himself to look away and smile at Past Shiro. “You still might like it though.”

Past Shiro brings the bread roll to his mouth warily and takes a bite. “Oh—oh this is sweet.” He says the word “sweet” like it means “transcendent.”

Keith can’t help the small smirk that flashes across his face when Past Shiro grabs the tube to add more juniberry jelly to his bread.

The food, when it arrives, is as good as it gets for Altea. Alteans aren’t big on spices, but they do like contrasting flavors which keeps Keith’s taste buds from being bored. Past Shiro happily eats a kebab of what he probably doesn’t realize are Altean beetles, while Future Shiro pokes at a salad-like dish, deliberately moving it in ways that will make his plate look emptier.

Keith can’t stand watching his misery. He grabs the juniberry jelly and squeezes it over Shiro’s salad.

“What the fuck, Keith.”

From the corner of his eye, Keith sees Curtis’s two-pronged fork hit the side of his face, missing his mouth. “It’s not like you were eating it anyway.” Keith’s face is on fire but he thinks if glares hard enough it will look like it’s from anger. “Just try it.”

“I don’t like sweet things,” Shiro says through clenched teeth.

“Prove it. If you hate it, you don’t need to finish it. You have nothing to lose by trying.” Keith feels like he’s running on adrenaline. Talking to Future Shiro is more terrifying than battling Zarkon.

“I have nothing to lose because you made my salad inedible, Keith.” He says Keith’s name like a curse.

“Just take a bite, Shiro.” Keith curses him back.

Shiro must sense Keith is ready to do this all day because he sighs and stabs his fork into a piece of juniberry covered not-lettuce. He makes a big show of bringing the fork into his mouth which makes it all the sweeter when his eyes go wide in happy surprise at the first bite. He chews the salad slowly, trying but failing to hide his pleasure.

“So, how is it?” Keith asks smugly.

“‘Itsokay,” he mumbles, refusing to meet Keith’s eyes.

“What was that?”

“It’s okay.” His stabs his fork into a section of his plate that’s more juniberry jelly than salad.

“Just okay?”

Shiro glares at him as he chews. The bratty expression de-ages him. He doesn’t feel like the Shiro with a boring, amiable husband living in a boring, claustrophobic apartment. Instead, he feels like the Shiro that fought to reach the stars, the Shiro that’s petty, ambitious, and brave. The Shiro that Keith knows.

“Guess we didn’t change that much after all,” Past Shiro says, pointing at Future Shiro with his bug kebab.

“You know those are beetles, right?” Future Shiro says.

Past Shiro’s face crumples like a kid being told Santa Claus isn’t real. “Wha—?”

Keith can’t take it anymore. He laughs, both at Shiro’s expression and as a way to release his tension. Beside him, Past Shiro starts laughing too and for a moment Keith feels like he’s going to be okay. The moment is fleeting, but it’s a start.

 

⼮

“What Pidge and I have been trying to figure out is if Past Shiro is stuck here until we invent time travel or if there’s some other more reasonable way to get him back. You know, maybe there’s some condition he needs to meet or maybe Allura set up some kind of time limit. There are a lot of variables to work with, especially since this is Allura we’re talking about. The science on time travel is already all over the place. Throw in alchemy? Well, it’s a mess is what it is.”

Hunk’s fascinating speech is difficult to pay attention to when Shiro can’t stop freaking out about how much older he looks—him and Lance. They’re adults. Adults! Pidge looks older too but the change is less drastic. She’s still young, a baby really compared to the rest of them. If he traveled further into the future he might be having a freakout over her too.

As for Keith, Shiro had that meltdown when Keith came back from the space whale. He doesn’t look much older than the last time Shiro saw him. If it wasn’t for the hair, Shiro might not have realized he aged at all.

“Back when Altea and Daibazaal first returned, I tried to figure out how Allura and Honerva did it. Were they the same planets? New versions? I ran tests, looked into fossil records, did all sorts of things to make sense of what happened. I never figured it out exactly—I have my theories—but I did learn a lot while testing. I want to use what I learned to run some tests on Shiro—both Shiros actually. Our Shiro will be the control. You know, what’s normal for a guy in the body of his clone and what’s not. Everyone following so far?”

“You’re going to run freaky science experiments on Shiro, got it,” Lance says. He apologized to Curtis when they returned from lunch but Shiro didn’t miss the way his future self and Lance were pointedly ignoring each other. He gets it. He remembers the way Lance used to pick on Keith and how difficult it was for him to stay impartial and the few times he utterly failed to. Shiro gets defensive when it comes to the people he cares about. It’s a good thing and a bad thing. Defending Keith has never led him astray; his life changed for the better each time he chose to stand up for him. On the flipside, there were times when defending Adam became an exercise in turning a blind eye to his faults, prolonging their relationship past its expiration date.

“I wouldn’t use the phrase ‘freaky science experiments’ but yeah. Basically,” Hunk clarifies.

“I’m ready to start when you are,” Shiro offers. Being poked and prodded by Hunk isn’t his idea of a good time, but he’ll take it if it brings him closer to saving Allura.

“How long is this going to take?” Lance asks.

“Hard to say.” Pidge tilts her head. “A few varga? We’re working in uncharted territory here. My equipment isn’t supposed to be used on people but it’s what we’ve got on short notice.”

“Sounds like you don’t really need the rest of us for this part,” Lance says.

“Not really, I guess,” Pidge says.

Lance yawns. “Great. You guys can come find me when you’re done experimenting on the Shiros. I’ll be passed out in bed getting my beauty sleep.”

Following Lance’s sleepy departure are Romelle and Coran. Romelle smiles and wishes him luck which feels like a strange sentiment for some testing but it’s nothing compared to Coran slapping his back and telling that “a Fortamur never jumps when it can fly.” Shiro can only nod politely at the cryptic phrase.

Hunk hovers over Pidge as she sets up her equipment. They’re fighting, Shiro thinks. Pidge has a stubborn set to her shoulders, a trademark of the Holt family whenever they’re feeling particularly self-righteous about something and Hunk’s tone with her lacks its usual warmth, instead taking on a haughtiness he usually reserves for food related snobbery. Another relationship mystery for Shiro to puzzle over.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to keep you company?” Curtis’s voice catches his attention with the unexpectedness of its existence.

“I’m fine, really, Go get some rest. You’ve been up for a long time,” he hears his own voice say.

“So have you,” Curtis protests.

His future self lays a hand on Curtis’s cheek. “I appreciate the solidarity babe, but I’m not sure it’s necessary for both of us to be sleep deprived.”

“Fine, you win. I’ll get some shut eye.” Curtis gives him a chaste peck on the lips and leaves. His future self is smitten as he watches Curtis walk away, a goofy grin on his face.

They seem nice together. Curtis is charming and funny, levels above Shiro’s post-Adam rebounds. He’s handsome too in a bland, inoffensive way, as if whoever designed him had a checklist of criteria to meet. There’s a white picket fence appeal to marrying someone like Curtis. The problem is Shiro has never been interested in that sort of life. He feels bored by the things Curtis describes—the furniture shopping, the dinners with neighbors, the art gallery openings—to the point of confusion. How does his future self live like that? It doesn’t help that it seems like the Atlas is grounded, or at least Shiro is. Promoted, maybe, to a desk job that keeps him away from space. If Future Shiro is anything like him (and Shiro thinks he must be, at least in this regard) he must be going stir crazy.

“How are you doing?” Keith asks. Ten thousand years of alien beauty are distilled in his sharp features, taking Shiro’s breath away. The messy braid is starting to come loose, a dangerous prospect because Shiro isn’t sure he can survive seeing Keith’s hair down in the proper light of day.

“I’m fine,” he replies, and because he feels like he needs to make the same offer Future Shiro did to Curtis he says, “You don’t have to wait around for me.”

“I don’t  _have_  to,” Keith agrees, “but I want to. If that’s okay?”

“Of course. I’d never turn down your company.”

Shiro wishes he imagines the way Keith’s face crumples.

“Yeah.” Keith looks away and Shiro doesn’t need to turn his head to know he’s looking at Future Shiro. Shiro wants to shake his future self in frustration. Can’t he see how much he’s hurting Keith by pushing him away?

“All right, Present—uh, Future Shiro with me and Past Shiro with Pidge. This will probably be pretty boring but it shouldn’t hurt. If it does get uncomfortable say something so we can stop. We’re trying our best to adapt but none of this stuff is meant to be used on people, as Pidge pointed out.”

Hunk hooks up Future Shiro to a machine reminiscent of an old-fashioned heart monitor.

“I’m sure we’ll be fine. I trust you and Pidge. Besides, I’m— _we’re_  used to getting tested,” his future self says. “Did it all the time for, uh, Garrison missions.”

“Man, space travel used to be such a big deal. Not that it isn’t still a big deal, it’s just—the technology and perception of it, you know? People aren’t worried about muscle atrophy or bone density loss or freaking out about catching weird space diseases. Maybe they should be for that last one. Now that I think about it, we never really come across a space flu or virus or whatever. Like, I guess there was Coran’s slipperies incident but otherwise? I can’t think of anything.”

Shiro tenses at Hunk’s casual mention of muscle atrophy. He feels, suddenly, like he’s going to be sick. The testing is already bringing back bad memories but Hunk’s rambling is making it significantly worse. It’s not Hunk’s fault—he clearly doesn’t know about Shiro’s disease—but just because he doesn’t mean to upset Shiro, doesn’t mean he isn’t. It just makes it harder for Shiro to get him to stop.

“That’s because Galra are big on vaccines,” Keith says, and like that the conversation shifts. Shiro recognizes it as the intentional save it is. “The Empire’s technology stagnated in every field but medicine.”

“I did not know that. One of these days I’m going to take an actual Galra history class. Not just a crash course with a nanny.”

“A nanny?” Keith asks.

“Oh right, you weren’t there. It was a Lotor thing. He had this nanny that kind of tutored me? It depends on if your definition of tutoring includes copious amounts of violence.”

“Yeah, you mean yours doesn’t?” Keith deadpans.

“Uh, no?”

Keith shakes his head. “Clearly, you—“

“Hey,” Pidge says, turning his attention away from Hunk and Keith’s banter. She hands Shiro a metal cuff that reminds him of the medical bracelet he used to wear. “Put this on. I’ve got my set of tests to run and then we’ll switch.”

Putting the cuff on his left hand feels wrong but it keeps him from feeling like he’s gone back in time instead of forward. The human mind is a funny thing. Haggar’s experiments haunt him less than his illness. Memories of countless treatments and tests linger even though this body didn’t experience them.

“I thought it would be weird with both of you in the same room, but it’s more like you’re Shiro’s long lost younger brother than anything else.”

Shiro frowns as the cuff lights up. “I'm not though.”

“I know. It’s just I thought it would be like having the clone in the same room—super uncomfortable because one of you didn’t belong—but it’s not like that. You’re both you.”

Shiro isn’t sure he agrees. He feels disconnected from his future self, but he doesn’t want to tell Pidge or anyone else that.

“I guess that’s true,” Shiro concedes.

Pidge starts fiddling with her datapad. “Hold still.”

When Pidge is done testing him with the cuff she makes him stand with his arms outstretched and scans him with a portable scanner, at one point climbing on top of the table to scan his head. Next, he has to hold a strange metal cube as Pidge adjusts sliders on her datapad that make the cube heavier and lighter. He has no idea what any of the tests mean, even when Pidge tries explaining them. All he can grasp is she’s doing a lot of testing related to quintessence.

When he’s done with Pidge’s tests he switches places with his future self to be tested by Hunk.

The testing is boring and tedious, just like Hunk guesses it would be. It reminds him of having to prove he’s fit to fly for the Garrison. The number of tests Sanda requested he go through before signing off on his first mission was as much of a challenge as his actual training. She didn’t believe in him from the moment she saw his medical records, his simulator scores be damned.

While Hunk turns a dial on something that looks like a mix between a Geiger counter and a walkie talkie, Shiro takes the chance to observe his future self unnoticed. It’s not the first time he’s seen his body from an outside perspective, so it’s not as disorientating as it should be. What does throw him off are the parts of his future self that he doesn’t recognize. The glasses are too much like Adam’s to be a coincidence. A tribute? The hairstyle makes him think of Adam too, but for a much different reason. He used to complain about Shiro’s “ridiculous floof" with a teasing smile at the start of their relationship and with a scowl as things soured—he would approve of its demise. The stubble beard, however, would have pissed him off. It was all or nothing for facial hair as far as Adam was concerned. He was like that for many things. Shiro admired it until it became how Adam saw their relationship.

As he scrutinizes his future self he realizes he isn’t the only one looking. Keith is leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, staring at the back of Future Shiro’s head. The expression on his face dislodges memories of watching Keith scour through battle wreckage for a sign of Shiro. The desire to shake his future self grows.

As if sensing Keith’s eyes on him, Future Shiro turns his head toward him, but he’s too slow to catch Keith in the act of staring. Keith snaps his head forward to stare at a purple cactus instead. Future Shiro keeps his eyes on Keith as Pidge runs her tests. They trail across the long lines of his body, the curve of his tight pants, the inviting shape of his profile.

Shiro’s throat goes dry watching it. The way his future self is looking at Keith is familiar because it’s the way  _he_  looks at Keith when he thinks no one is watching. But that can’t be right. His future self is  _married_  and married men don’t look at other men like that, like they want to—

He gets over Keith—right?

“That was the last test. Now we just have to wait for Pidge.” Hunk’s voice interrupts his spiraling thoughts.

Pidge directs Future Shiro to stick his flesh hand into a device that looks like a nail dryer. The moment Future Shiro looks away from Keith, Keith’s eyes wander back to him.

“Keith, can you round everyone up?” asks Hunk.

Keith startles and turns towards Hunk, missing the moment Future Shiro starts staring in his direction again. Shiro wants to bang his head on the table.

“Me?” Keith ask.

“Yeah, you,” Hunk says, bemused.

Keith reluctantly leaves, but not without a final glance at Shiro and his future self. Shiro smiles at him in a way he hopes is reassuring.

Pidge and Hunk compare test results when Pidge finishes, leaving Shiro to sit in silence with his future counterpart. It’s the awkwardest he’s ever felt. Pidge is so wrong about it not feeling weird. This is as weird as it gets.

“So,” Shiro tries, not entirely sure where he wants the sentence to end up, “we get married.”

Future Shiro twists the gold ring on his finger. “Yeah. We get married. I’m as surprised as you are. Never thought it was going to happen after breaking up with Adam but you already know that since you’re me.”

The self-deprecation feels harsher when it leaves the safety of his own head. Shiro decides to steer clear of Curtis and talk about something safer. “How’s the Garrison? You’re working at the old East Coast base, right? From what I gathered.”

The crease on Future Shiro’s forehead is a new one. “Did Kei—did no one tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“I’m retired. Curtis still works for the Garrison but I don’t. I tried a desk job for a while but it wasn’t for me. I do a few events—motivational speaking, fundraisers, that sort of thing—but I’ve moved on otherwise.”

“I don’t understand. Is it—are we sick again?” He looks at his arm as if his disease is something he can see on his skin.

“No, we’re fine. Whatever Haggar did to this body is permanent.” Future Shiro sighs and looks off into the distance. “I was faced with a decision. You wouldn’t understand.”

The future has thrown a solar system of hurts at him but this is the shining sun at the center of it. When Shiro had nothing, not even a future, he had space. He had his ambitions, his career, his curiosity about the universe giving him a purpose.

“I wouldn’t understand? I’m you!” Shiro’s haze of anger makes it difficult to stop from raising his voice. “We gave up everything—we gave up a future with Adam, just for the chance to see the edge of the solar system. I thought—I thought you were forcibly grounded, not  _retired_.”

“Don’t you see? That’s exactly why! We gave up  _everything_. Why would I do that again, given a second chance? You think I don’t miss it? Being in space, traveling the universe? I miss it every damn day but you can’t maintain a relationship, a marriage, if one of you is always gone. You make sacrifices for that kind of normalcy.”

Shiro is ready to snap and say something worse—ready to make a jab at Future Shiro’s marriage and ask if it’s actually worth giving up his career for—but before he can, a recognizably unrecognizable man clears his throat.

_Curtis._

Shit.

The missing part of the group is back. Curtis, Romelle, and Lance are in pajamas, while Coran is in… something else.

“Hunk, Pidge, you wanted to go over the test results with all of us?” Curtis says. He looks tired from more than a lack of sleep.

Hunk nods nervously. “Yeah, if you can all sit down. Right. We ran tests on Shiro and, uh, Shiro’s quintessence, among other things, and what we found was interesting. I’m not sure if everyone knows this, but every living thing has a unique quintessence signature, kind of like a fingerprint. Since Shiro isn’t in his original body, his is kind of unusual. Instead of one quintessence signature he has two. The clone’s quintessence stayed separate from his. Or so I would think if I didn’t know better. The highest concentration of the second signature is around Shiro’s right arm—which doesn’t make sense if it’s related to the clone. It’s also fading. Future Shiro has a lot less of it than Past Shiro. All of that combined makes me think it’s Allura’s quintessence we’re picking up on, not the clone’s. The clone’s quintessence probably merged with Shiro’s. My theory is Allura was able to reach Shiro, and specifically this Shiro, because her quintessence mixed with his when she was transferring him into this body and again when she put her crystal in his arm."

“So what does that mean for sending Shiro back and changing the future?” Lance asks.

“If Hunk’s right—and I’m pretty sure he is—I think there’s something about the place Shiro time travelled from. You said you were at the Garrison, walking around. Where exactly?”

Every eye turns to Shiro. “Um, I’m not sure. I was originally near the medical ward.”

“Do you think you were near where Allura installed the crystal in your arm?”

“I—maybe?” He thinks about how the hallways went in circles, twisting in impossible directions. “It’s possible. That’s not far from where I was before I got lost.”

“I want to check up on the Garrison, and that room specifically, and see if I can find any of the same energy signatures we see around you.”

“And if those energy signatures are there, what then? Do we just take Shiro to the Garrison and poof! He time travels?” Lance asks.

Pidge shakes her head. “I have a feeling that whatever connection she had to Shiro in the Garrison is used up. Shiro mentioned it seemed like she was fading away when he saw her.”

“So what then?” Lance asks.

“We need to go to the asteroid where Allura transferred my quintessence to this body—isn’t that right, Pidge?” Future Shiro says.

Pidge nods.

“Great, what are we waiting for?” Lance says. “Well, other than a plan to change the future. You guys mentioned Shiro’s connection to Allura is fading over time so we should probably get on that.”

Pidge bites her lip. “It’s not that simple.”

“Okay, what’s the issue.”

“That’s why Pidge wants to head to the Garrison,” Hunk says. “She’s hoping— _we’re_  hoping that there will be enough residue left to build a tracker because without one we might spend the rest of our lives trying to find that asteroid. The lions are gone, so we can’t track it through their flight logs. Our suits don’t keep that information, and the castle is and was already gone at that point. All we’ve got to go on is that we were somewhere near Daibazaal and the rift, which isn’t much. There are thousands of asteroids in that area.”

Thousands, Shiro thinks, is a generous underestimation.  _Millions_  is the more likely answer without any maps to reference.

“And if you guys can’t build a tracker?” Lance asks.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Pidge says somberly.

The possibility of being stuck in this timeline, never seeing his Keith again, not saving Allura, is sobering. “How long do we have until Allura’s quintessence fades too much and she can’t reach me?”

“It’s hard to say. Weeks, months. The sooner we find that asteroid, the better.”

“So, what’s the plan?” Lance asks.

There’s a confidence to Hunk that his younger self doesn’t yet have. He’s grown into himself. “Pidge will head back to the Garrison tomorrow while the rest of stay here. Hopefully, she’s been able to find something we can use to build a tracker. Meanwhile, the rest of us need to give Past Shiro a crash course on how to stop Honerva from destroying reality without any unnecessary sacrifices.”

“Sound easy enough,” Lance says sarcastically. “I’d like to go on record to say I’m still not sure that we won’t make things worse.”

“This is our chance to set things right,” Shiro says. Lance turns to him, his expression calculating. He can’t imagine the younger Lance looking at anyone that way. “The risk is worth it.”

Keith pets the wolf with a forlorn look on his face, his fingers combing through blue fur. He stands apart from the rest of the group, but it isn’t like the times when he kept his distance from the others during the early days of Voltron. All of them stand in isolation. Even Curtis avoids returning to Future Shiro’s side. They might have saved the universe, might have saved reality, but they’ve lost something— _someone_  vital to their lives.

His Keith can’t have this future. Shiro won’t let it happen.

“I hope you’re right,” Lance says.

Shiro hopes so too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is probably the most """science""" you'll get out of me for this fic. i'm here for feelings!!! still, it's fun to get sidetracked by things like quantum entanglement and heisenberg's uncertainty principle even if i'm never going to go into that amount of depth in this fic (or else i'll still be writing this fic years from now).


	7. dilation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: I would like to finish this fic before summer is over  
> real life: fuck you

Voltron ends with a whimper.

News of Honerva’s defeat takes time to spread throughout the universe, but when it does it’s met with celebration. One month after the war ends Earth holds a parade that seems to stretch across the entire planet with the Lions and Atlas as the main event. Throngs of humans and aliens swarm Earth’s surface to catch a glimpse of the team that saved the universe. The mood from the crowd is lively and joyful. Hunk can’t hear them in Yellow but he can see that they’re cheering and waving with smiles on their faces. When the Atlas transforms fireworks go off in the background and the crowd’s excitement turns palpable. As happy as they are to see the four Lions still in commission, Atlas’s flashy transformation turns into the real showstopper. Four small spaceships in the shape of Lions can’t compete with a gigantic city-sized robot.

The comms between the Paladins are quiet throughout the parade. Hunk would think they were off if not for the occasional comment from Keith directing them where to fly. Shiro isn’t much chattier when he checks in, but then he’s never anything but professional when he interacts with the Paladins through official channels.

Eventually, the parade ends. No crowds are waiting for them when they make it back to the Garrison. It’s too late. Hunk has no way to tell the time on Yellow but judging by the darkness and the way he can’t stop yawning he thinks it must be around two or three in the morning in Arizona time.

The Paladins land on an empty strip of concrete at the edge of the Garrison’s perimeter. They don’t organize it—somehow it just happens.

The Atlas docks in the hangar at the center of the Garrison.

When Lance climbs out of Red, Hunk knows from the slump of his shoulders that something final and irreversible is about to happen.

“I’m not staying,” Lance says when all four of them reach each other. In the dark, the Altean marks on Lance’s face can pass as tattoos. “I’m going to spend some time with my family. Figure out what I want to do with my life now that the universe is saved.”

Keith nods. Pidge stays still and silent.

“Of course,” Hunk says, needing to say something. “Good luck, man. We’re always here for you if you need us. That’s never going to change.”

“We’re your family too,” Keith says, simple and final.

Pidge breaks her stillness to draw Lance into a tight arm. Hunk, never one to resist a chance to hug his friends, joins her and with a little grumbling, Keith does too. The three of them envelop Lance, telling him he better stay in touch (“Don’t think this means you can escape us,” Pidge says fiercely).

The next to quit the Garrison is Keith and it’s nothing like Lance’s tearful goodbye to the team. In the first place, Keith never makes it official. His departure is gradual but easy to keep track of by the ever-increasing appearance of his Blade uniform. The transformation is complete when he stops taking it off entirely and chooses to make Daibazaal and not Earth his home base, but that doesn’t come until later after even Shiro is gone.

While Keith makes himself scarcer and scarcer, Hunk starts to think about what he really wants from his life. A talent for science is what drove him to apply to the Garrison, not a love for the military.

One morning as Hunk buttons up his uniform, he’s hit by how much he feels like a cog in a machine. The Garrison isn’t like Voltron. He doesn’t feel vital; he feels like he’s doing a job anyone can do.

He turns in his resignation letter that afternoon.

The last to leave is Shiro.

Soon after Shiro announces his engagement, Hunk learns through the grapevine that Shiro is planning on stepping down from his captaincy of the Atlas. The news is more shocking than his upcoming nuptials—and that’s saying a lot. Shiro and the Atlas go together like the Galra and spicy food. There’s just no way any Galra would choose to eat something bland over a well-spiced dish, just like there’s no way Shiro would choose to take a desk job on the newly rebuilt East Coast base. But he does. And when Shiro quits a few months after the wedding, Hunk assumes it’s to take on a more active role again. He’s wrong. Shiro retires completely.

Pidge is the only one that stays at the Garrison. She stays while the rest of them move on with their lives.

“You could be doing so much more. Making a real impact on the universe.” The argument starts as it always does. Hunk almost regrets inviting her onto his ship. “I am making an impact, Pidge. Don’t you get it? This is where I’m needed, but even if it wasn’t you don’t get to choose what I do with my life.” Romelle looks like she wants to say something but Hunk shakes his head. This isn’t her fight.

“Teaching a few people how to make food goo more edible isn’t making an impact. You could revolutionize how we transport supplies, how the Coalition stays in touch, how—”

“Anyone could do those things. You could. Matt could. But what I’m doing? It’s not about making food goo more edible, actually. Maybe if you had a more open mind you could see that.” Hunk admits it’s a low blow but when it comes to fighting with Pidge he’s not always good at taking the high road.

Pidge stares at him like he slapped her. Romelle does intervene this time; Hunk doesn’t try to stop her.

Hours later, Hunk is still replaying their argument in his head. He sighs and rolls over on the castle’s couch to try to find a more comfortable position to sleep. Unfortunately, the couch isn’t built to be a comfortable bed and as the frame digs into his sides he considers dragging himself out of the castle to his ship for the night. He could do it. He could stand up and make the long, arduous walk through the castle and courtyard until he reaches his empty, lonely ship. The journey would be painful but the end result would be worth it.

Hunk stares at the lights blinking on Coran’s antique sound system. He makes no attempt to crawl out from his blanket burrito.

A shuffling sound in the hallway interrupts his bedding dilema. Cautiously, he sits up and peers over the couch into the darkness. He can’t see anything but the shuffling sound grows nearer. He fights down his panic. The castle and planet are new, so there’s no way they’re already haunted. That would be absurd. What kind of ghost haunts a brand new building on a planet that’s not even seven years old? Maybe the ghost is from the old Altea. Can that happen? Can a ghost that belongs to an old version of a planet be transferred to a new one? He doesn’t know the logistics behind reality bending spacetime magic and how that might affect paranormal activity.

An eerie, flickering light travels down the hallway casting a sickly glow around the doorway, making it worse to look at than the previous impenetrable darkness. The shadows on the wall reach out like claws. The shuffling sound gets louder and the light grows brighter; whatever is out there is getting closer. Hunk grasps at his blankets as if were a shield.

A disembodied hand floats into the doorway. Hunk screams and throws a pillow at its general direction. He misses; the hand picks the pillow off of the floor. Hunk lets out a string of Altean curses he’s learned from Romelle.

“Hunk?” Shiro peaks his head into the doorway. The glow from his shoulder port casts a glare across his glasses that conceal his eyes.

“I thought you were a ghost!” Hunk’s heart is pounding as fast as the time it did when he was running through an alien jungle chased by a swarm of angry bee-things during an attempt to track down a rare spice.

“A ghost? Me?” Shiro’s eyebrows shoot up as he walks into the lounge. As usual, he’s opted to pass on Coran’s custom pajamas. Instead he wears a white tank top paired with grey sweatpants. During the last reunion, Hunk saw Curtis wearing Shiro’s paladin pajamas, bumping into him wandering around the castle in the early hours of the morning looking for Shiro. Somehow Hunk doesn’t think Curtis is wearing them tonight.

“Weird noises, some kind of light moving closer, and then a hand not attached to anyone just floating there in the doorway?” Hunk gestures at the offending appendage. “What was I supposed to think!”

“That two people in the castle have a freestanding prosthetic arm so it might be one of them?”

“Two people?” Hunk asks without thinking. “Oh—right. There’s two of you.” He blames his sleep deprived brain for forgetting that little detail.

“Yeah, there’s two of me,” Shiro says flatly.

Hunk unwraps himself from his blankets. “What’re you doing still up?”

Shiro smiles politely as he dodges the question. “I’m sorry if I woke you. I didn't realize you were sleeping in the living room.”

“Nah, I wasn't asleep yet. This couch is super uncomfortable. It’s like trying to sleep on some kind of medieval torture device. What about you? What’s keeping you awake?”

“Similar reasons,” Shiro says evenly.

“What, your bed is also cutting off your circulation and slowly killing you?”

Shiro continues to smile that fake plastic grin of his that lets Hunk know there’s no point in trying to get more out of him. Hunk has to keep himself from sighing. “Why are you on the couch anyway?”

“Romelle stole my bed. She spent half the day napping and still called dibs on it, which is massively unfair but that’s Romelle for you.”

“And she doesn’t want to share?” Shiro asks playfully, meaningfully. “Or do you not want to share?”

“We’re not like that.” Hunk tries to keep the annoyance out of his voice. It’s a conversation he’s getting tired of having with people. “Romelle’s like family to me, like you and Keith were—” Hunk cuts off, realizing how weird it is that he said it in past tense.

Shiro stares at him. The glowing shoulder and arm don’t add much light to the room so it’s hard to fully read his expression, but then Hunk doubts he could read it even in the daylight. Shiro has always has been difficult to read.

“I’m sorry for prying, Hunk. I was hoping to talk about something lighter but it looks like I failed.” Lighter than the reason Shiro is walking around in the middle of the night instead of in bed with his husband.

Hunk swallows. “You know what my throat is totally dry. I think I’m going to grab a glass of water. How about you?”

“I think that’s a great idea.”

Hunk feels more at ease in the castle’s kitchen. The hum of the appliances are soothing and Shiro looks less intimidating when his arm isn’t acting like a spooky nightlight.

“So, time travel, huh?” Hunk grabs two glasses from the castle’s cupboards. “Or is that also not a light topic?”

Shiro shrugs as Hunk fills their glasses. “Depends.”

“It’s kind of freaking me out how young past you is.”

“Oh? So you’re saying I’m old?”

“No!” Hunk says hastily as he hands a glass of water to Shiro. “That’s not what I meant.”

Shiro laughs, light and genuine. Hunk realizes then Shiro is only teasing him.

“You’re an ass sometimes, Shiro. I don’t know how I never noticed that. But I guess that’s just it. I didn’t know you as well as I thought I did. You seemed way older than us. It just felt like—I don’t know. I thought being in your mid-twenties meant you had your life together and that you were super impressive but now I know better. I sure don’t have my life all put together.”

“Well, some people do have their lives all figured out at that age. I just wasn’t one of those people. But you, Hunk? I think you’re plenty impressive. You’re doing something you love, right?”

Hunk nods.

“That’s more than a lot of people can say at your age. I know I couldn’t. When I was twenty-four I definitely did not have my life together. I was stuck in an unpaid internship I couldn’t see an end to.”

“Huh?” Hunk has no idea what he’s talking about. “The Garrison wasn’t paying you?”

“Ah.” Shiro rubs the back of his neck self-consciously. “I wasn’t talking about the Garrison. I guess that joke didn’t land. Nevermind.”

“Wait—are you calling your time as a gladiator for the Galra  _an unpaid internship_?” Hunk can’t believe him. He really can’t.

At least Shiro has the sense to look a little sheepish. “I’ve been told my sense of humor can be a little dark.”

“Yeah, just a little.”

Shiro drinks the rest of his water before setting his empty glass on the counter. “Before I derailed this conversation you asked about time travel.” He taps the rim of his glass. “We didn’t really discuss it, but I don’t have any of my past self’s memories. All of this—traveling to this time—I never did that. I’m no expert but that sounds like we’re not fixing this timeline, are we? We’re making a new one.”

Hunk sets his glass next to Shiro’s and takes a breath. “Maybe. I don’t really know. This isn’t a movie. Maybe when the past you returns to where he belongs you’ll get his memories. Or maybe we’ll be erased from existence. Who knows?” He tries to say the second option nonchalantly, like the thought of them being wiped away from reality isn’t terrifying.

“Does Lance know?”

Hunk shrugs. “Lance is skeptical enough about the entire situation that he’s probably already thought of the possibility. I think he’s made up an entire list of worst case scenarios.”

“Hunk, he deserves to know. He might seem cynical on the outside but we both know that’s a defense mechanism. We’re getting his hopes up.”

The castle’s kitchen is cluttered in a way the old one never was. Coran has managed to amass a truly impressive amount of junk. Hunk recognizes several “As Seen on the TV” products that look like they’ve been used only once, if at all. He itches to clean the place but he’s not sure if Coran would appreciate it.

“Hunk.”

“Fine, you’re right. I’ll tell him. I’ll tell everyone.”

“Good. It’s not nice to get his—or anyone else’s—hopes up. Whatever that other me does—we’re not going to have that life. We’re stuck with this one. But that doesn’t mean any of us wouldn’t jump at the chance to save Allura, even if it’s an Allura for a universe that isn’t ours.”

“Even if it’s at the expense of this one?” Hunk asks.

Shiro stares out a window above the kitchen sink. “It’s not like we’ll know it, right? It’s not like we’d be dying. We’d just stop existing.”

Hunk finds the idea of not existing at all even worse than dying. He doesn’t know how to feel about the way Shiro sounds almost wistful when he describes it, but he can’t dwell on it for too long because Shiro keeps going.

“Do you ever wonder what would’ve happened if you stayed at the Garrison?”

It’s a swerve Hunk isn’t expecting. He looks at Shiro, trying to glean a reason behind the question but the man is as unreadable as ever. “Not really.”

“You don’t miss it? That feeling of being part of something bigger than you? You were a great engineer, Hunk. One of the best in the universe.”

“You sound like Pidge,” he says, thinking of their recurring argument.

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“She thinks I’m wasting my talent because obviously if someone is good at engineering and cooking, they would choose to be an engineer.”

“Ah.”

“To be fair, I’m pretty sure Pidge only bugs me about my life choices because she feels left behind and I'm the only one she can take that out on. Keith is doing something she can’t find fault in, picking on Lance would just be cruel, and telling you to return to the Garrison after all you've been through is kind of shitty.”

Shiro frowns with more seriousness than Hunk is expecting. “Taking her frustrations out on you isn’t right.”

Hunk shrugs. “It’s not a big deal. Frustrating, maybe. But we’re still friends.” Hunk stands up and grabs their empty glasses to wash, turning his back to Shiro. He’s afraid of looking at him; he thinks his face will give away the secret that’s not his to tell.

During Shiro’s wedding, Keith wandered off. Hunk went to look for him and found him crying by himself in a place where he obviously didn’t want to be found. It was only then that certain things about Keith fell into place for Hunk. Why Keith didn’t seem interested in romance, why he always tried so hard to save Shiro, why he turned down Shiro’s offer to be his best man.

Washing dishes always clears his head. It’s almost a shame there aren’t any dirty dishes in the sink, leaving him with just their two cups to distract him.

“I'm happy with my choices,” Hunk says. “In this universe—in this reality, I don’t have any regrets. I don’t feel like bringing people together with food is somehow lesser than whatever I’d be doing for the Garrison. There are a lot of cultures that the Galra destroyed, planets that were decimated, people that are now nomads without a home. One of the things that make them feel like everything isn’t hopeless is getting a chance to eat their own food again. Food is a gateway to a culture. Not just for others trying to learn about a culture, but for the people part of that culture.”

“I never thought about it that way. That’s beautiful, Hunk. Maybe if you explained it that way to Pidge, she would get it.”

“Maybe,” Hunk concedes, though he doesn’t truly believe it. Pidge doesn’t have a strong relationship with food and culture and she doesn’t always understand when other people do.

“I’m glad you’ve found something to do that’s meaningful to you. Not everyone gets to.”

Hunk thinks about the Shiro’s outburst in the dining room.  _You think I don’t miss it?_  It surprised him to hear Shiro talk that way. Shiro seemed so content with his life. But then Shiro seemed content as a Paladin and later as Atlas’s captain too.

“I might not know him that well, but I think you’re selling Curtis short. If you miss space I don’t think he would hold it against you if you rejoined the Garrison and started going on missions. Maybe he would even want to join you.”

When Shiro doesn’t answer, Hunk turns around to check on him. He looks dazed, Hunk can almost see the thoughts swirling around in his mind.

“Shiro?”

His face changes into an impassive mask. A faraway smile appears on his lips that doesn’t even attempt to reach his eyes. “It sounds easy when you put it that way. But I’m afraid when feelings are involved things are rarely that simple. I’ve lost my chance. My past self—he can make different choices. Not me.”

In the kitchen’s bright lighting Shiro looks washed out. His skin is too pale and the circles under his eyes are too dark.

“With all due respect, that’s bullshit. You can always make a different choice. Sure, you can’t redo your life, but you don’t have to stick with a decision if you’re no longer happy with it. You’re allowed to change your mind, Shiro.”

“Maybe you’re right,” he says in a way that doesn’t sound like he thinks Hunk is right at all. “It was nice talking to you, Hunk but I’m getting a little sleepy. I think I’m going to head back to my room.”

“Yeah,” Hunk says, scrambling to follow after him. “Me too.”

They part ways in the hallway; the lights from Shiro’s arm and shoulder grow dimmer as he walks away until they disappear entirely, leaving Hunk in the dark.

Hunk gropes blindly until he reaches the living room. As he curls back up to sleep, too tired to care about the discomfort of the couch, he wonders how he was ever fooled into thinking Shiro had his life together, then or now.

 

⼮

When Keith wakes up the stars are still out. Shiro is fast asleep, tired from the day before. Keith is tired too but it’s the kind of tired that comes from today and tomorrow not from yesterday, so no amount of sleep will take it away.

Shiro looks at peace as he sleeps. His chest rises and falls, his quiet breathing the only sound in the room. In Keith’s imagination, he brushes back Shiro’s soft hair. In his imagination, he traces the scar that spans across the bridge of Shiro’s nose. In his imagination, he rests a finger on the bow of Shiro’s lips.

In reality, Keith watches Shiro’s sleeping face until it hurts too much to keep looking.

He slips out of bed carefully using all of his Blade training to escape without waking Shiro. He gathers what he needs and takes one last masochistic look at Shiro’s sleeping face before heading to the showers.

The showers and bathrooms in the castle near the Paladin’s rooms are a communal dorm style, like on the original castle but with significant upgrades. There’s more luxury to them; this castle wasn’t built to go to space so it doesn’t have to make the same design compromises.

Someone is already taking a shower when he enters. They’ve been at it for a while judging by the way the mirrors have fogged up. Keith looks for a sign for who it is and finds a set of clothes laid out that immediately puts him on edge. He tries to bolt and backs into a wheeled rack, knocking over dozens of shampoo bottles and soaps. The sound of everything falling reverberates; even over the blasting shower, there’s no way Shiro hasn’t heard him.

“Hello?” Shiro calls out. He turns off the shower faucet because of course he’s done with his shower exactly now.

Despite the pile of products he’s knocked on the ground, Keith still considers running away and leaving them for Shiro to deal with. He doesn’t though. Keith wants to be brave.

“Hi, it’s me. Keith.” He adds his name as if Shiro can’t recognize his voice, which for all he knows might be the case.

Shiro doesn’t respond right away which does nothing to help Keith’s anxiety. He bends down and starts to pick up the bottles he knocked for something to do. The shower stall door opens and he hears Shiro grab a towel. Keith isn’t sure how the bottles were arranged before he dropped them. By type? By style? His written Altean is piss poor; he has no idea what 99% of each label says so the best he can do is to arrange them in a way that looks aesthetically pleasing. Hopefully, Coran won’t mind.

“Good morning. You’re up early,” Shiro says pleasantly. It does nothing to put Keith at ease.

“Morning. So are you.” Keith winces; he meant to match Shiro’s tone but instead he sounds accusatory.

“You know me,” Shiro says lightly, “I’ve always been a morning person.”

Keith grunts and places the last bottle on the rack. He straightens his back and turns around, expecting to find Shiro changing. He’s not; he’s staring at Keith. He looks away quickly like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t be. Keith’s heart sinks.

The two of them dress and undress in silence. Keith keeps his back to Shiro, forgetting that for once facing him head-on might be the safer choice.

“Your back,” Shiro says, his voice straining.

Keith freezes. His braid is covering part of the tattoo but the piece stretches across the entirety of his back. There’s more than enough of it on display for Keith to feel more exposed than if he had stood face first and naked in front of Shiro.

Keith unravels his braid, brushing out his hair so it can cover a larger swatch of the tattoo. Maybe Shiro will let it go, pretend he didn’t see Keith’s broken heart etched onto his skin.

“Keith.” Shiro stands behind him close enough to touch and close enough to make out the details on Keith’s skin without his glasses. “You—”

“It’s just a tattoo. It doesn’t mean anything.” As far as lie goes, it’s one of Keith’s least convincing. He’s lucky at least it’s unlikely Shiro can read any of the text.

“A tattoo that size isn’t something you get on a whim.”

“What do you want from me, Shiro?” Keith spins around and faces him, tired of running and hiding. “You ignore me for what–six years? Seven? And suddenly you want to ask me about my tattoo? You want to know about my life Shiro? No, I don’t think you do.”

“I haven’t been ignoring you.” His eyes flick away for a moment. “I—I replied to your messages.”

“Really? You’re going to pretend one-word answers count as a reply?” Keith stands on his toes, pushing into Shiro’s space in anger.

Shiro looks embarrassed and then—his eyes flash. “No—you don’t get to blame me. You’re the one that went radio silent for almost a year after I got married. I tried contacting you plenty of times and you either didn’t answer or used Krolia as a buffer.”

“That was different,” Keith says, his anger draining.

“How? You wouldn’t be my best man, you didn’t show up for my bachelor party, you left early from my wedding and then didn’t talk to me until you had to at the reunion. What kind of friend does that?”

Keith doesn’t register he’s moved until Shiro is holding his flesh hand to his cheek, covering the spot where Keith slapped him. Not a punch, not a shove—a slap. A slap so hard Shiro staggers back.

“Keith?” Shiro reaches for him, but it’s not to retaliate. It’s slow and careful like Keith is a spooked animal he’s trying to comfort.

“Get away from me.” Keith brushes away tears from his eyes. He feels humiliated, worse than when Shiro caught him with Zrek. He has no way of explaining himself that isn’t cutting out his bleeding heart and handing it to Shiro to see.

“Keith, please. I want to understand.” He tries again, this time his hand manages to reach Keith’s shoulder before Keith shoves him away.

“I said get away!” He glares up at Shiro through a curtain of dark hair. Shiro looks like he isn’t going to listen—fine then. Keith rips off the rest of his clothes—it’s not like there’s anything Shiro hasn’t seen at this point—and rushes into a shower stall. He turns the water on. It’s freezing; he jumps away from it until the water warms up enough to be comfortable.

The door to the hallway opens and closes. Keith sinks to the shower floor and lets out a sob.

He’s angry at Shiro. He’s angry at himself even more.

Hot water pelts down on him. Just a little more of this and it will be over. The past Shiro will be gone and this future one can go back to ignoring him. He can try again to move on. Really force himself to this time.

Just a little more of this.

 

⼮

Shiro recognizes the field this time. The mountains in the background belong to Altea and the purple flowers are juniberries. He thinks this might be the same spot where the caste is—where Allura’s statue is—but here in his dream, there are no buildings just an open field and sharp mountains. The faceless girl isn’t faceless this time but she’s not who he expects either. The markings on her face are a turquoise color and her eyes aren’t quite the same shade of blue as the woman standing next to her.

“I don’t suppose you can tell me where the asteroid we’re looking for is,” Shiro says.

“Sorry, I have no idea,” Allura replies. The little girl runs around her legs, laughing.

“Who is she?” Shiro asks though he thinks he has an idea.

“She’s not anyone that exists. Look.”

Shiro turns around. The field isn’t a field anymore but a desert; the green-blue mountains are red cliffs. A dark-haired child plays in the dirt. He can’t tell if they’re a boy or girl; as soon he thinks the child is a girl the image shifts and the laces on her tiny sneakers turn pink. When he thinks the child might be a boy the sneakers turn into cowboy boots.

“Is that?” Shiro asks.

Allura doesn’t answer. The child looks up at the sound of his voice. Their eyes are a bright purple and when they grin Shiro can see they’re missing a tooth. The child looks nothing like him.

“I think those are your ears,” Allura says as if reading his mind. Maybe she can in this dream world.

“Why are you showing me this?” Shiro asks.

“Time is malleable. Remember that. Not just the past, but the present, the future.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Tell Lance I—” She shakes her head. “You’d think after being trapped here for so long I’d come up with something better to say.”

“Whatever you want to say, I’ll tell him.”

Allura shakes her head again. “You won’t remember anyway.” As she says it the desert starts to crumble. Already he knows he’s missing something. Something before. How did he get here? Allura? The child—which child?

“The next time we see each other—” Allura’s voice cuts out, the words swirling around in the sunset. “Good luck!”

A knock on the door wakes Shiro up. The dream slips away from him until all he can remember is a desert and a child with his ears and Keith’s eyes. He doesn’t know what it means.

The knocking grows louder and desperate. Shiro realizes Keith isn’t in bed. He looks toward the chair, but Keith isn’t there either.

Shiro crawls out of bed, wondering if Keith accidentally locked himself out but when he opens the door it’s like looking into a funhouse mirror. The man in front of him is himself, but the details aren’t quite right.

“What time is it?” Shiro asks.

His future self paces outside the door. “You need to go to Keith, please. He needs you.”

Instantly, Shiro is on alert. “Is he hurt?” He starts imagining the worst. He saw the way some of the Alteans on the planet looked at him. Did one of them sneak into the castle and attack him? Anything seems possible at that moment.

“No, he’s safe. It’s that. Please. He’s in the shower.” His future stops pacing to stare at him, wild-eyed and pleading. “I fucked up. I always fuck everything up with him. If you won’t go, I’ll ask someone else.” He turns around to leave.

“No! I’ll go.” If the future Shiro was the one that upset him, he probably doesn’t want to see the past one either, but Shiro finds he doesn’t care. Everyone else has had their chance to help Keith and none of them have taken it.

He leaves his future self behind to find Keith.

When he gets to the bathrooms Keith is still showering. His clothes are scattered all over the floor.

“Hey,” Shiro calls out. He realizes Keith has no way of knowing which Shiro he is without seeing him but before he can clarify, Keith speaks.

“I’m not sure how much clearer I can make things, but I don’t want to talk to you right now.”

“Keith, listen.” The water shuts off. “I’m not—”

“No, you listen. I’m tired of this. I told you how I felt, and you pushed me away. And then you have the nerve to say I wasn’t a good friend to you? You don’t owe me your feelings, Shiro. I know that. I’ve always known that. But if you didn’t feel the same way about me, you should have said something instead of avoiding me and then expecting me to smile and be your best man like nothing had happened. Like you hadn’t broken my heart.”

Shiro thinks he must still be dreaming. He stumbles and knocks over a rack of bottles and towels. The clatter as everything hits the ground is almost comical. He thinks absurdly he feels a lot like the shampoo bottle he accidentally steps on and crushes.

_Yes, Mr. Broken Shampoo Bottle. You understand me._

“Seriously? You knocked over the shampoo rack too?” The shower door swings open and out storms a dripping wet, naked angry Keith.

Shiro stares at him. He has no idea where his eyes should be looking. He doesn’t think they would listen to his brain anyway.

Fuck, he’s beautiful.

“You’re—you’re not my Shiro.” Keith says.

That snaps Shiro back to reality. He averts his eyes by looking at the ceiling. Within seconds his neck starts to get tired. “The other Shiro—he woke me up. Said you—yeah.” It’s a little difficult to form a coherent sentence when the image of Keith wet and naked is seared into his brain.

“Fuck,” Keith says. “Can you get me a towel?”

Shiro stops staring at the castle’s thrilling white ceiling and finds that Keith has vanished, but not without a trace. One of the shower stalls is shut.

Shiro uses his prosthetic arm to grab a towel and hand it over the stall door to give to Keith.

“Um, maybe something a little bigger? I think this is a face towel.”

Shiro grabs the biggest towel he can find and is thankful that Keith can’t see how red his face is turning.

“Thanks.”

Shiro’s mind whirls as Keith dries off. What Keith said—he didn’t mean platonically, right? Shiro replays the words in his head, searching for any evidence that he's misunderstood what Keith meant.

“Keith, do you have feelings for me? For the other Shiro, I mean.”

Keith pushes the stall door open so fast it makes a loud whacking sound at it hits another stall door. Shiro notices that the towel covers him better than a bathrobe would. Obviously it was meant for someone much bigger than Keith.

“You already know the answer to that.” When Shiro just stares at him, Keith points to the scar on his face.

_Shiro, please. You’re my brother. I love you._

It’s not like Shiro doesn’t remember that fight. He does—he remembers it like it was part of his own memories, even though they’re not. He just thought—

“You never brought it up again,” Shiro says.

“When was I supposed to? You kept avoiding me whenever I tried to be alone with you.”

Shiro gulps. He can’t deny it. “It was hard. I kept remembering what I did to you. And when we got to Earth everything happened so fast. We don’t—we don’t talk about it when you wake up?”

“You’re not even there when I wake up, Shiro. You’re never there. You keep pushing me away. Avoiding me. Can you promise me something?”

“Anything.”

“Can you tell him?” Keith’s voice shakes. “Can you tell your Keith you don’t feel the same way? Can you tell him so he doesn’t have to go through what I did? I promise I’ll get over it. I always knew it wasn’t going to happen. I let myself hope for a little while—but I knew the truth deep down. All I wanted was to be your friend, and now we’re not even that. But if you say something this time, maybe we can stay friends in your future.”

Silent tears stream down Keith’s face. Shiro doesn’t think Keith even realizes he’s crying. The heartbreak he oozes hurts Shiro like a physical pain. The worst part is he can’t blame his future self for it. They’re the same person. The source of Keith’s hurt starts with his actions. He didn’t think at all how it looked avoiding Keith after what happened with the clone. He didn’t plan on continuing it. He wanted to talk to Keith, he was trying to gather up the courage—but it looks like he didn’t.

His future self wasn’t kidding when he said he always fucked things up.

Shiro does what his future self is too cowardly to do. He grabs Keith and pulls him against his chest. Considering one of Shiro’s arms isn’t attached to his body, Keith can easily escape from the hug if he wants to.

He doesn’t pull away.

He wants to tell Keith everything. How he feels—how he’s always felt—but it isn’t the right time, and it isn’t the right Keith. He doesn’t know how his future self feels anymore. Before knowing how Keith felt in return, he hoped his future self had moved on. Now? Is it better or worse if his future self is still in love with Keith? He’s married to someone he cares about—Shiro can’t deny that. He wouldn’t have given up so much for Curtis if he didn’t love him.

But what he feels for Keith is bigger than anything he’s felt before. He loved Adam. There’s not a doubt in his mind about it. But that love feels so small when he thinks about Keith. It feels impossible that his love for Curtis could feel as large as his love for Keith.

“I promise you Keith, I’ll talk to you this time.” He presses his face against Keith’s wet hair. The castle’s shampoo isn’t strong enough to bury that scent that’s uniquely Keith. He breathes it in and relaxes. “Can you promise me something, too?”

Keith nods; Shiro feels it more than sees it.

“Don’t give up on your Shiro. I know that’s unfair of me to ask, but he’s me. I know he’s made mistakes—I’m not asking you to forgive him. But if tries to reach out to you—can you hear him out? That’s all I’m asking.”

He has no idea if Keith is going to agree. Keith has every right not to. It’s a selfish request on Shiro’s part.

“He knows where to find me if he really wants to talk.”

It’s not a true promise, but Shiro will take it.

His future self hurt Keith by pushing him away. His future self is married.

But.

He saw the way he looked at Keith. If there’s a chance his future self might still be in love with Keith—he’d destroy a marriage for it. Maybe that’s easy for him to say because he doesn’t know Curtis. It’s not _really_ his marriage and it’s never going to be so destroying it doesn’t bring up the feelings of conflict it should. It might not be that easy for his future self. That’s why he can’t tell Keith how he feels. It’s up to his future self to confess or not. But at the very least he hopes they can be friends again.

“Thank you, Keith.” He pulls back. Keith’s hair is messed up where Shiro rubbed against it. “Do you want any help drying your hair?”

Keith hesitates and Shiro thinks he’s going to say no but then he nods. He sniffs and Shiro has to resist the urge to hold him again.

It’s a special kind of torture to be close to the future version of the man he loves, that loves him back but thinks it’s unrequited. But however difficult it is for Shiro, it’s probably worse for Keith. What he must think of Shiro. He doesn’t seem upset though. He doesn’t try to push Shiro away.

It makes Shiro fall even more in love with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel slightly bad that i wrote a castle-shower-scene(ish) thing for a different fic because technically i planned this out first......


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